Excessive Workloads and Stress
Heavy workloads can negatively affect the psychological well-being of employees, their blood pressure and heart health, the stability of their family relationships, and their safety in the workplace. All of these negative effects can fluctuate on a daily basis based on the employees' perception of the amount of work they have to do.
According to a study published in the summer 2010 issue of Personnel Psychology, (Ilies, R., Dimotakis and De Pater, 2010) employees who reported feeling overworked also reported feelings of psychological and emotional distress and a reduction in their overall levels of well-being. These effects were found to be less severe when employees felt the organization placed a high level of value on their work and gave them a sense of control over their circumstances. Negative effects were more severe when employees felt not only overworked but also powerless and not valued by the organization.
The study published in Personnel Psychology also found that employees who felt overworked had higher blood pressure than those who did not. This negative effect was more severe when the overworked employees also felt undervalued and powerless. Because high blood pressure is correlated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease, chronically heavy workloads could be associated with higher risks for heart attacks and other heart health problems. The study found that blood pressure levels would spike on the same day as the increased workload, so the effect is immediate.
A safety study conducted by Towers Watson (Under pressure to remain relevant, employers look to modernize the employee value proposition, 2016) found that employee perceptions of high workload correlated with a 62 percent increase in accident rates at a petrochemical company. According to the report prepared by Towers Watson, industrial accidents cause a worldwide loss of up to 4 percent of the gross domestic product every year, so the financial impact of accidents caused by excessive workloads must be considerable. However, the study also found that worksites with good teamwork were able to keep accident rates down despite heavy workloads. When high workloads cannot be avoided, companies can mitigate the negative effects by encouraging teamwork, giving employees as much power over their circumstances as possible and letting them know that their work is value.
References
Ilies, R., Dimotakis, N. And De Pater, I. (2010). Psychological And Physiological Reactions To High Workloads: Implications For Well-being. Personnel Psychology, 63(2), Pp.407-436.Willis Towers Watson (2016). Under pressure to remain relevant, employers look to modernize the employee value proposition. [ebook] Willis Towers Watson. Available at: https://www.willistowerswatson.com/-/media/WTW/PDF/Insights/2016/09/employers-look-to-modernize-the-employee-value-proposition.pdf [Accessed 24 Mar. 2019].
How could a company mitigate workload stress? or is it the employee inefficient? Please elaborate more on this please.
ReplyDeleteGiving two man job to a single person is not a fault of the employee. It shows that company has not scaled its resources according to the output they are expecting. This is a very common problem in work that requires creativity and problem solving.
DeleteEmployee should be considered inefficient given that the work is distributed properly but the employee is missing on deadlines or working overtime on a task that requires no OT.
The workload may increase due to various other factors discussed in the other post as well. Poor communication, Employee not fit enough to work or overloading an employee with lots of work is also considered as a form of harassment. This can be observed by most of the Personal Assistants.
I think HR should strongly monitor workload distribution and performance and the employee should be communicated according for more optimized outcome. Like have mentioned in one of the comments related to stress, prolonged stress will also make the employee to under perform.
In today's increasingly competitive environment, it is unrealistic to expect organizations to get lower their work requirements for employees, or for employees themselves to get lower their work requirements. The only effective way should be for employees to improve their time management ability, improve work efficiency and work ability, or change their working methods through new technologies.
ReplyDeleteThat is true. But with proper communication the employee also should feel the competition and take the challenge and work for the betterment of the company. Giving too much and not telling exactly why, make the employee question the company's choices which will only increase the employee turnover.
DeleteLike you mentioned proper training on improved and efficient methods will increase the overall outcome. But it all depends on how HR handles the workload monitoring and distribution.
This is very much true. When you have lot of works where you can't meet deadlines, eventually you become stress. This happens in finance very often. So much of manual works creates more stress. That's why automated, ERP systems comes in to play very productively. In HR there are so many paper works to do. Managing another stress person is very difficult. So HR need to be aware all those facts in order to meet organizations objectives through employees' success.
ReplyDeleteThis is true,today's competitive environment, the companies are making effort to reduce their cost to get more margins or pricing their product or services at a competitive price in the market. Because of these objectives the companies are compel to get more work from less workers to reduce their labor cost. Therefore management has a responsibility to find out whether excess work load created due to the employees less productivity or indeed of short of employees available.
ReplyDeleteif it is due to the less productivity, management should introduce training and development program and performance management system to overcome the situation or if it is short of staff management should carry out the job analysis process and bringing suitable additional employees into the organisation.
True, workload construct emerged from extensive, task-specific research on the capacities and limitations of the human information processing system; it reflects the perceived margin between task demands and an individual's motivated coping capacity.
ReplyDeletestressed workforce can have detrimental effects on your organization as a whole. Your employees may lose their motivation, engage in conflicts and have a difficult time completing their tasks. Poor mental focus, sleep deprivation, fatigue and psychosomatic disorders are all common side effects of work-related stress.
stressed workforce can have detrimental effects on your organization as a whole. Your employees may lose their motivation, engage in conflicts and have a difficult time completing their tasks. Poor mental focus, sleep deprivation, fatigue and psychosomatic disorders are all common side effects of work-related stress.
Andra Picincu
Updated April 29, 2019
Yes you correctly said, Job insecurity, financial problems and the competitive job market may force employees to take on heavy workloads and make compromises. Furthermore, working long hours is associated with loyalty and commitment in many organizations. It's not uncommon to see employers who require their staff to work until late at night or cancel their plans at the last minute. This leads to stress and burnout in the long run.
ReplyDeleteA stressed workforce can have detrimental effects on the organization as a whole. Employees may lose their motivation, engage in conflicts and have a difficult time completing their tasks. Poor mental focus, sleep deprivation, fatigue and psychosomatic disorders are all common side effects of work-related stress. Studies conducted over the years indicate a direct link between workload and exhaustion. Job burnout contributes to diminished performance, high blood pressure and digestive disorders.
But in today’s world heavy workload of employees is common in every organization, it is important that employers must identify methods and help the employees to manage the workload without falling into stress such has proper delegation of work, systemized work etc.
Point of emphasize is totally agreed. But currently most of the companies in the world with the competition in red ocean. Market not a green ocean and ethical as two or three decades before. Due to that reason companies need to develop new strategies to get maximum turnover with minimum amount of employees. Some times employees came for job in one department but he might must cover additional one or two department work also for same benefits hence with this competition most of the business profit margins came down. If company need to allocate excess work load on employees as a demonstrate company can try out with employee motivation by additional benefits and training and development to improve skills on new works very important hence all employee has maximum capability on one or few areas and less benefits more works will reduce efficiency of employees
ReplyDeleteYou there, this is really good post here. Thanks for taking the time to post such valuable information. Quality content is what always gets the visitors coming. Employee Feedback
ReplyDelete