Workplace Stress – Cause of Anxiety

Workplace stress and stress-related illnesses costs the Canadian economy $5 billion a year, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association.

 

 

 

The 10 Top Workplace Stressors

1. The treadmill syndrome. Too much to do at once, requiring the 24 hour workday.
2. Random interruptions
3. Doubt. Employees aren’t sure what is happening, where things are headed
4. Mistrust. Vicious office politics disrupt positive behaviour.
5. Unclear company direction and policy.
6. Career and job ambiguity. Things happen without the employee knowing why.
7. Inconsistent performance management processes. Employees get raises but no reviews or get positive evaluation, but are laid off afterward.
8. Being unappreciated.
9. Lack of two-way communication up and down.
10. Too much or too little to do. The feeling of not contributing and having a lack of control.

Workplace stressors compounded with life stressors on the personal front may create a level of stress that overwhelms, paralyzes, producing emotional outbursts, unbearable anxiety attacks or depressive episodes.

A Leadership Issue

Leaders create working conditions that engage the workforce.  In a workplace where conditions exist that are outside the person’s control or realm of influence and where roles, responsibilities, authority, accountabilities or expectations are unclear, frustrated passion can arise, resulting in:

 

• A high stress environment
• Poor communication
• Office politics
• Workflow problems
• Diminished productivity and
• Staff disengagement

This dysfunctional state, in turn, may deteriorate and lead to:

• Attendance issues
• Burnout
• Project or business failure

According to The Business and Economic Roundtable on Mental Health, when factoring in lost productivity, workplace stress, depression and cardiac disease, linked to mental illness, are collectively responsible for a cost of $40 billion annually, in addition to the subsequent human suffering -10% of the Canadian population suffer from depressive episodes.

As Benjamin Disraeli said, Man is not the creature of circumstances; circumstances are the creatures of men.

We can find hope and courage in Peter Drucker’s insight, Knowledge is information that changes something or somebody – either by becoming grounds for actions, or by making an individual (or an institution) capable of different of more effective action.

Coaching helps! Take the first step to creating positive lasting change.