Work Stress and Its Impact on Individual and Organization Health -

The world of work is changing now more than ever. Due to the global pandemic, collective experiences of grief and loss, and the racial uprisings of summer 2020, work stress is at high levels and poses a high threat to the health of workers and organizations. Sleep issues, weight loss, physical pain, and exhaustion are also all connected to work stress based on research.

In this blog post, I share about work stress and its impact on individual and organizational health, its definition, and how it’s different from challenging work.

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Work Stress and Its Impact on Individual and Organization Health

Let’s start with the first obvious question: what is work stress?

The United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health defines work stress as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of a job don’t match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker.

So clearly, work stress tends to occur when there’s a lack of fit between an employee and their work environment. To back this up, studies have shown that 1/4 of employees view their job as the number one stressor in their lives. Moreover, 3/4 of employees believe that they have more work stress than previous generations.

Work stress tends to occur when there's a lack of fit between an employee and their work environment. Share on X

Additionally, work stress is more strongly associated with health complaints than any life stressor. This includes financial and family problems.

Physical stressors can increase the level of work stress that an employee experiences. Some of these are:

Poor office layouts
Bad lighting
Noise
Improper working postures

These stressors can all lead to work stress and psychosocial stresses like:

High job demand
Inflexible work hours
Low autonomy
Bullying
Harassment
Job insecurity
Bad management

How does work stress differ from challenging work?

Well, first you have to understand there are different kinds of stress.

We have positive stress, tolerable stress, and toxic stress.

So, how does challenging work differ from those three types of work stress?

Well actually, challenging work tends to fall into the category of positive stress.

To define, challenging work motivates us to learn new skills, master our jobs, and generally want to grow and keep doing better in the work that we’re doing.

Challenging work motivates us to learn new skills, master our jobs, and generally want to grow and keep doing better in the work that we're doing. Share on X

During or at the end of challenging work, we tend to leave feeling energized as opposed to demoralized. This is extremely important for healthy and productive work.

In his book, “Deep Work”, Cal Newport talks about research that has shown that people are actually more fulfilled and satisfied when they’re working as opposed to when they’re idle.

That being said, challenging work stimulates our brain, and our intellectual abilities and keeps us feeling like we’re growing and contributing to society.

On the other hand, work stress can impact us when we’re working in jobs where the demands can’t be met. It’s categorized by exhaustion, and feelings of stress. Therefore, it generally sets the stage for physical and mental illness or job failure.

What is the impact of work stress on individual health and organizational outcome?

The research that links work stress to physical and mental health outcomes is well established.

Evidently, work stress has been connected to issues like high blood pressure obesity, and high blood cholesterol. All of which can lead to cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks and strokes.

In addition, work stress has been related to physical problems such as persistent back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, weight increase, and even weight loss. Also, work stress can impact mental health problems like anxiety, burnout, depression, and substance abuse.

So, naturally, if a worker is constantly operating at these high levels of stress that lead to negative outcomes, it stands to reason that their performance will also be impacted…And there’s research to back this up!

Furthermore, studies have shown that work stress reduces employee productivity, increases absentee, increases the number of days taken off work for doctor visits, increases the healthcare court cost incurred by employers, and is linked to higher levels of accident, injury, and turnover rates. As a result, increased administrative costs take place.

With that in mind, if you’re an employer or a leader reading this post right now, I’m speaking to you also! Yes, work stress at the individual level has an impact. But ultimately, work stress presents financial and administrative repercussions at the organizational level!

There you have it! Work stress and how it differs from challenging work, and the ways in which it negatively impacts our physical and mental health, as well as organizational outcomes.