Stress at work doesn’t just take a toll on your personal life; it can also affect your career. While stress at work can come in different forms, it can have a detrimental effect on your health and safety, productivity and cause you to make mistakes. There are a variety of WHS stress management strategies that you can employ to adapt to the stress at work and ensure that you’re staying productive.
In this article, we’ll discuss the different types of stress that you can expect at work, how to manage them, and how to take steps toward self-improvement and positive health and safety. Let’s get started.
What is Stress within WHS?
Stress is a normal part of life, but when it’s constant or has become excessive, it can actually affect your quality of life. If you’re experiencing a great deal of stress in your life, you may be experiencing one or more of the following types:
- Anxiety – This is the feeling or worry that something bad is going to happen, like a death at work due to a workplace health and safety incident or some other life-changing event. When stress is prolonged or becomes excessive, it can lead to an anxiety disorder like obsessive-compulsive disorder or generalised anxiety disorder.
- Manic episodes – People with bipolar disorders are often said to have “manic” episodes, but the re-occurrences of the episodes are not necessarily manic. There can be a variety of causes and health and safety risks of stress at work.
- Dissociation – This is when a person’s sense of identity is disrupted. It could be the case of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative amnesia, or some other stress-induced disorder.
What is Emotional Stress?
Emotional stress is often the result of a situation that is outside of your control. It can also be caused by a person or situation that you don’t like or don’t feel equipped to handle. Often emotional stress is a result of feelings like anger, frustration, or sadness. It’s not a good use of your energy if this is what you’re feeling. You’ll be far more productive if you can get rid of these feelings and turn your attention to the work at hand.
What is Psychological Stress?
Perception is reality, and emotional stress can also be caused by the way that you perceive your situation. If you’re feeling stressed about a job you’ve been assigned that you know is beneath you, you can change that perception. By working hard, doing a good job, and showing initiative, you can change the perception of your work and yourself. Whatever you do, don’t let this stress get to you.
What is Organisational Stress?
If you’re experiencing a great deal of stress at work, it could be due to organisational stress. It can come from a variety of sources, including lack of support, expectations, deadlines, and a lack of clarity on what’s expected of you. You may have organisational stress if you frequently feel overwhelmed, under pressure, or if you’re experiencing frequent arguments with colleagues or your supervisor.
What is Occupational Stress?
Sometimes people experience occupational health and safety stress, which can be the result of your work environment. It could be due to poor ventilation, chronic noise, or a highly toxic environment. Due to poor WHS safety culture. Before you can address the stress at work you’re experiencing, you need to identify the root cause of the WHS risk that’s causing it.
Often, the best way to do this is to change your work environment. You can do this by engaging workplace health and safety consulting specialists like Safetec Safety Solutions, to conduct a comprehensive WHS audit (gap analysis) and safety culture survey of your workplace. The safety consultants would provide comprehensive and detailed guidance and WHS strategies to action activities requiring work/change within the workplace. You can also institute more WHS policies and training where there is an integration of flexible work hours, work rotation depending on the workplace health and safety risk, WHS and Mental health induction and awareness training and even a physical place where you can go to calm down.
How to Improve Performance During Times of Stress
WHS Stress management strategies are important regardless of what type of stress you’re experiencing. If you want to improve your professional performance while under stress, there are several steps that you can take.
Firstly, you need to identify the source of the stress. Is it related to your job, your co-workers, your boss, or your workload? Once you know the source of your stress, you can find ways to minimise or eliminate it using the health and safety hierarchy of controls.
Secondly, you need to identify the triggers that lead to stress. Once you know what gets you stressed, you can avoid or mitigate those sources. This can be achieved by talking to your boss, talking periodic breaks, utilizing any employment assistance, and most importantly doing something you like and not dedicating 100% of your time on work. Remember, you still have a social life.
Conclusion
Stress at work doesn’t just take a toll on your personal life; it can also affect your career. While stress at work can come in different forms, it can have a detrimental effect on your productivity and cause you to make mistakes. There are a variety of stress management strategies that you can employ to adapt to the stress at work and ensure that you’re staying productive as well as managing your mental health. In this article, we discussed the different types of stress that you can expect at work, how to manage them, and how to take steps toward self-improvement from a WHS point of view.
