Stress Management In Organisation
Major Concern

Dr. Niranjan Prasad Upadhyay

MANAGEMENT is the process of creating an environment in which individuals working together in groups efficiently accomplish the specific goal. In personnel administration, managers always try to involve in the overall activities of the personnel in the course of setting the goal and objectives of the organisation. Particularly, managers conduct general administration according to the certain assigned job and responsibilities. In the context of Nepalese organisations, managers run the administration according to the objective and assigned job. Managing an organisation well has become a great challenge to every Nepalese administrator. It has been a great challenge for Nepalese bureaucrats in delivering efficient and prompt services to common people.

Goal

Managers achieve organisational goals by getting the jobs done with and through the employee. They must strike an optimum balance between jobs and the employees to enhance organisational effectiveness. This is essential to achieve goals through efficient acquisition and use of available resources. Stress has become a major concern of modern managers in all types of organisations. Its potential role on health and productivity has become a cause for concern. Researches have indicated that almost 80 per cent physical diseases are caused by stress alone.

The term stress refers to psychological state, which derives from persons' appraisal of the success with which he or she can adjust to the demands of the environment. It is closely interwoven in all facets of life. It covers wide areas i.e. management, administration industry, politics and psychology.
Stress is not an exciting topic to deal with in personnel administration. It is necessary and positive force leading to effective work and maintenance of good health. Insufficient stress might lead to 'rush out' while over exposure to stressful conditions might lead to burn - out. Psychologically, stress performance relationship may be compared with the strings on a violin. When there is either too little or too much tension on the strings, music becomes a noise. Organisational researcher often remark that an individual may have a high stress tolerance for one variety of stress and low stress tolerance for another variety, depending on age physical conditioning, learned behaviour adjustment among others.

Nepalese bureaucrats show stress due to various reasons, viz. imbalance of reward and punishment, poor salary, low motivation and poor training facilities, lack of job description and assignment, inadequate recognition of performance, political pressures, and tendency of sharing undue benefits.

Researchers have reported a arithmetical link between coronary heart disease and individuals exhibiting stressful behavioural patterns designated "Type A". These patterns are reflected in a style of life characterised by impatience and a sense of time urgency, hard driving competitiveness, and preoccupation with vocational and related deadlines. The person- environment fit model urges that if a person is not able to fit into his or her working environment, it leads to stress and strain.

High level of stress, or even low levels sustained over long periods of time can lead to reduce employee's performance in an organisation. A psychologist, claims that in Nepal's work context, high stress is caused by diversified factors such as deadline pressures, inadequate career development and opportunities and lack of opportunities to travel abroad. In 1982, CWIN conducted a research on the working condition of children. Amongst the girl carpet weavers, 38 per cent said that they were repeatedly sexually harassed, teased or raped. Nepalese legal experts, say that in carpet and garment sectors, verbal nature of sexual harassment is common. In such sectors, physical abuse by male workers to female workers like pinching on the buttocks, embracing, holding hands, caressing are common and frequent.

In fact, there is lack of legislation and specific law or policy to address sexual harassment in Nepal. Researchers advocate that women face different types of psychological problems related to sexual harassment at workplace like degradation of physical and mental health, decrease in earning, loss of job. Also the psychological effects of sexual harassment are very serious not only to the victims but also to the society. Usually, harassment creates diversified problems like lack of concentration towards work, depression, lose of self-esteem, confidence and mental stress.

In every organisation, workers mostly face different types of interpersonal problems viz. personality difference, information deficiency, role incompatibility and environmental stress. Psychologists highlight that job related stresses are unavoidable in working environment. In this electronic age, managers operate in an increasingly difficult environment. The pressures and challenges facing by the managers are becoming more complex. This environment often elevates stress, and managers are persistently trying to achieve a balancing act between two extremes.

Stress cannot only be negative or destructive. It can also be positive and can encourages people to work hard for their achievement of their targeted or defined objective. A moderate level of stress may lead to better performance by making better preparation. It also helps in creating a more positive self-esteem and an equally positive power. Under moderate stress levels, performance is high because physical and mental capabilities are challenged.

Feed back

Lastly, managers can help their subordinates by promoting employee's awareness and fitness, providing social support by evaluating the redesign of work and managing time. Redesigning jobs give employees more responsibility; more meaningful work, more autonomy, increase feedback and their participation can reduce stress. These factors give the employee greater control over work activity and minimise their dependence on others. Furthermore, organisations must develop stress management programmes to help employees to cope with stress.

Other Stories

• The Ozone Layer And Ozone Hole
• Dashain Beyond Kathmandu