High job stress and its impact on performance
The perception
of stress is
subjective, and how much negative impact stressors have on job
performance can be determined by the self-efficacy of the individual. For individuals who have a high initial level of self-efficacy, stressful
situations are
not viewed as major problems, but as challenges
Mashrur Noor Afsar and Nabila Rahman
In todays day and age, it is becoming quite pivotal for those of us working in a day-job to manage the balance between work-life and home-life and not let the stress from one of those spheres affect the other. It may be becoming increasingly difficult to do that however. So, we decided to explore a certain factor which may be affecting our work-life, i.e. the relationship between job stress and job performance.
The level of efficiency of an individuals performance, contributes to the achievement of the organisational goals, referred to as job performance, which in turn determines the organisational success. Thus, higher levels of job performance will result in an organisation meeting its objectives and goals effectively, creating positive consequences for the organisation. Or will it? While there is substantial organisational theory dissecting human behaviour, incentive mechanism and the economics of productivity, the opportunity calls for a closer look at some institutional and social structure failures that contribute immensely to this stress and the ultimate repercussions of a decrease in job performance. Lets look at job stress, measured in terms of four stressors role ambiguity, role overload, role conflict and resource inadequacy, can have an impact on job performance and how high job stress among employees leads to decrease in job performance.
It is important for organisations to ensure that job stress does not negatively impact job performance of employees as this has serious consequences for organisational success. This can be done by increasing the self-efficacy of employees with the use of training. It is important to discuss and analyze the relationship between the variables job stress and job performance in detail. The phenomenon of job stress has become a major challenge for organisations, as it affects workers in terms of their physical and mental well-being and ultimately may lead to a decrease in ones overall performance. Not only can this result in harmful effects upon the individual, but also can have detrimental consequences for the organisation in which they are employed. According to experts statistics, job stress costs the Canadian economy approximately $12 to $33 billion annually. In the US, the costs are even higher and are estimated to be around $300 billion. These numbers seem to be growing at a rapid pace. Job stress is now commonly referred to as an epidemic by many experts.
Now that the importance of the topic has been established it is important to study how job stress impacts organisations. There are various factors which contribute to job stress comprised mainly of role ambiguity, role overload, role conflict, and resource inadequacy. Role ambiguity is when the worker is uncertain about what is expected from his or her role. The individual does not know how to perform their job in accordance to the employers standards. This could be due to insufficient job description, lack of job training or they are not receiving enough performance feedback. Role conflict is the conflicting demands of two incompatible roles that the worker identifies with. These
demanding roles are too much to handle and put a strain on the individuals performance. Role conflict usually results from an arbitrary expectation to fulfill a task not required in the workers job description or
expertise.
Stress from role overload occurs when the worker is not being able to keep up or cope with the pace and level of intensity from the workload associated with the job role. This could be due to unreasonable or long hours of work or they were given a vast workload to complete in a limited and an impossible amount of time. Resource inadequacy refers to when the worker is not given enough or the proper resources needed to adequately perform within the role or the task at hand. This could result from either the managements inability to provide the resources needed or the individual simply does not have the aptitude or necessary skills to perform the task effectively.
Firstly, job stress often leads the workers to feel they are not in control of their work activities. Secondly, job stress often makes the workers have a sense of urgency or creates hyperactivity at work. Finally, job stress is often caused by overload or too much work. Many researchers have investigated this issue by measuring the harmful effects that job stress at the workplace can have on an individual. Researchers have tried to illustrate the relationship between a stressful job and adverse health factors. However, the researcher using the concept job stress is primarily focused on the consequences the harmful effects can have on job performance and organisational goals.
The perception of stress is subjective, and how much negative impact stressors have on job performance can be determined by the self-efficacy of the individual. Self-efficacy refers to the judgements that individuals have about ones capacity to successfully manage situations or perform tasks. For individuals who have a high initial level of self-efficacy, stressful situations are not viewed as major problems, but as challenges. These situations give the employees an opportunity to prove themselves. This means that an individual who has been trained will have a higher initial self-efficacy, will view a stressful situation as a challenge, and thus, work harder to maintain their level of performance. As a result, the presence of stressors would have gone up, but performance would have stayed the same. This implies that there may be no relationship between the two variables.
Understanding the relationship between stress and performance can have many managerial and practical implications. If training can be used to reduce the impact of stress, it will mean a variety of things. First, managers of employees that constantly deal with high stress situations will be able to help their subordinates perform well more consistently. Second, employees that can better cope with stress will be able to resolve this challenge successfully, achieving proper work-life balance, ultimately increasing job satisfaction and morale. Similarly, if training can be used to foster consistent performance in employees, then managers and organisations will be willing to invest more resources into proper training programs. It will allow for a better understanding of how to improve an employees effectiveness across a variety of situations, no matter how stressful.
Organisations everywhere seek to improve performance of their employees. Research on the variable of training and how it impacts the stress-performance will improve companies understanding of ways to increase the effectiveness of employees. Organisations will be able to place more emphasis on proper task-related/stress management/self efficacy training for employees, and use training as a tool to reduce how much performance is affected by stress.
So, our understanding from our exploration of the topic is that high job stress does have somewhat of a negative impact on job performance. However, individuals with a high level of self-efficacy are equipped to deal with high levels of job stress and could possibly even excel in pressure situations. For the management of organisations, this means that training focused on task-activities, stress management or self efficacy can increase an employees initial level of self efficacy before stress is encountered. At high levels of self efficacy, employees are able to overcome stress and maintain performance. Based on this understanding, organisations will then be able to increase the focus on suitable training programs, ultimately creating more productive employees who are also more satisfied with their jobs. Given that stress and performance are important in nearly every job setting, this is an important insight into employee behaviour which will have tremendous benefits for organisations everywhere.
The writers are students of MDS (Masters in Development Studies) at BRAC University
