Organizational Approach To Stress Management

In today’s competitive world, ‘stress’ is an oft-heard term. Stress refers to a feeling of strain and pressure. Small amounts of stress may be positive, beneficial, and even healthy. It may help to improve an individual’s organizational performance. It also plays a factor in motivation, adaptation, and reaction to the environment. Excessive amounts of stress, however, may lead to bodily harm. Stress can increase the risk of physical illnesses such as heart attacks or strokes and mental disorders such as depression.

Stress can be external (related to the environment), but may also be created by internal perceptions that cause an individual to experience negative emotions surrounding a situation, such as pressure, discomfort, etc., which they

(Blake & Vandiver, 1988) (Mattlin, Wethington, & Kessler, 1990)

• Stress management

Stress management refers to the wide spectrum of techniques aimed at controlling a person's levels of stress, usually for the purpose of improving everyday functioning.

This may be viewed from two perspectives -

 Organizational perspective: The focus is on steps that the organization (such as the business, place of work, school or college) can undertake to alleviate stress of individuals linked with that organization.

Many businesses today have begun to use stress management programs for employees who have trouble adapting to stress at the workplace or at home. Many people have spill over stress from home into their working environment. Several methods that can be employed, depending on the situation are:

• Individual intervention

• Developing social support

• Working out the root cause to try and avoid the stressors all together

• Changing behavioral patterns

• Employee assistance programmes such as counseling

• Changing the workload for an employee. Some may be too overwhelmed that they have so much work to get done, or some also may have such little work that their potential is going