How stress management improves the effectiveness of the employees

Stress affects the way we work and our ability to be efficient and effective. The people who work are a very important resource when managing work or projects and it is important to ensure their wellbeing such that they can perform their duties in a project. Therefore stressed employees can effect the outcome of a project, either by losing out on their effectiveness and delaying the project or in worst case losing the ‘’human resource’’ completely. Based on this, stress management is important to consider when working with projects. Real life examples of stress happening are e.g. when the whole world shut down because of the ongoing pandemic. It required change in where and how to work. Change in the communication between coworkers. The whole work/life balance was wrought up. Some companies have handled it well while other companies have been struggling. The changes the pandemic has brought has been a cause for stress both at the office and when working from home. Therefore managers have had to manage stress to keep their employees efficiency and effectiveness up. Changes causes stress whether it is working conditions or restructuring of the organizations. As a project manager, a project will always have changes happening. The project rarely runs smoothly and adjustments have to occur. Therefore in a position as a project manager, stress needs to be managed to handle the changes and the employees. If the king falls, the war is lost. Therefore, it is important that the projectmanager manages the stress of not only their employees but also themselves. Using tools in e.g. time management and communication it is possible to manage stress not only for the project manager but also their employees while keeping them happy. Managing stress eliminates uncertainty and keeps the project steady.

What is stress - Basic information about stress

Most people have probably experienced a situation where they felt they were not in control. Examples of stressed situations could be too much work, too many appointments, economic issues or your dog ate something bad and has to go to the vet. Stress is the body’s survival reaction to unexpected happenings. When a stressful event occurs, for example a university student having to deliver in an assignment the next day, stress hormones are released which triggers the fight or flight system, making the student able to respond to the stressful situation. A common way of looking at stress is the following statement: ‘’Stress is the feeling of being overwhelmed or unable to cope with mental or emotional pressure.’’ Says the mental health foundation. You can call stress a survival instinct. Stress is often related to mental health. It can have both positive and negative effects depending on the situation the person is in. It can help people through fearful situations, and the stress hormones will usually disappear after the stressful situation is over. It can also work against people and deteriorate them physically and mentally if the person is unable to cope with the stress over a longer duration of time.

If you are experiencing overwhelming amount of stress you should seek help with a medical professional who in turn can help you find local resources to help you.

Stress identifiers

Sometimes stress is not easy to identify since it is not always clear instances that causes stress. Sometimes stress is like standing in a shower and slowly turning up the heat, not realizing how warm the shower is. Stress also affects the person differently and people have different thresholds, but there are certain identifiers to look for when experiencing stress . 1. Psychological signs 2. Emotional signs 3. Physical signs 4. Behavioral signs

Psychological signs could be concentration or anxiety issues while emotional signs could be feeling more irritated or frustrated than normal. Physical signs could be bodily changes like blood pressure or illness while behavioral signs could be poor self-care or the need to rely on substance abuse.

Different types of stress

As mentioned earlier stress can have different effects on a person, both positive and negative. Below is described 4 different types of stress . 1. Acute stress – short term stress with either a positive or negative effect depending on the situation. 2. Chronic stress – long term stress which can start affecting the mental and physical health. 3. Episodic acute stress – A type of acute stress where the stressful situations keep happening causing distress. 4. Eustress – A positive type of stress where the person is energized by the situation for example when racing.

What causes stress

When stressful situations occur what causes the stress are called stressors . Stressors can be external and internal. External stressors could for example work, school, financial or relationship issues whereas internat stressors could be negative thoughts and unrealistic expectations. As stated earlier, people have different thresholds. These thresholds might be dependent on the persons background and physical properties. What one person finds easy to work around might be hard work for another. Therefore it is important to respect how people react differently to stress.

One stressor is that change causes stress as it takes people out of their comfort zone. Especially organizational change can bring the employees out of balance, disrupting their working patterns. According to a paper by Barbara Wisse and Ed Sleebos organizational change would cause an increasing level of self-reported stress among staff members and medication to combat stress also increased. When change occurs, the employees will experience uncertainty in their work methods, some might even find it a threat to their everyday. This increases their stress levels if not managed properly. Therefore, when creating changes either within a company or when working, it is important to manage it properly, not only the individual, but there needs to be a proper change management plan executed to ensure the employees feel a safe transition. Another type of stress is occupational stress, as things such as job satisfaction or work pressure can affect the individual. According to a journal about stress in information system professionals, people experienced stress and burnouts depending on factors such as age and gender, but also deadlines, coworkers, performand and job security.

How stress affects project management

According to a paper by Alan Patching and Rick Best, Regardless of the cause of stress, it can decrease the workplace performance . As mentioned earlier stress affects people differently. Imagine a situation where an employee is dealing with the effects of stress, and this results in them being unable to communicate properly with their teammates. The employee’s performance starts deteriorating and they could be unable to keep up with their deadlines. All these negative aspects will bring down the productivity of the individual, but this is not the only issue. Considering the amount of teamwork and cooperation employees conduct not only internally but also externally with customers or suppliers, the reduced performance of an individual can affect the people around them. This means, that with the stress of an individual, the whole team can be affected. A specific term comes to mind, when looking at the after effects of stress. Burnouts is a psychological syndrome response to chronic emotional and interpersonal job stressors . Employees who are burned out can experience physical health issues such as headaches, sleep disturbances and chronic fatigue. This is turn will result in lower productivity and effectiveness. The employee will possibly work less for the organization and their work quality will go down. With this in mind, a project manager has to focus on time, money and resources management which are important when running projects. Even with project time buffers, a project risks getting delayed. Now the question is, what about including the reduced performance in risk management, then you as a project manager would be prepared in case their performance goes down. Now imagine the stress of the employee being so severe over longer time and it has resulted in physical duress that led to an employee going on sick leave. If an employee goes on sick leave because of stress, it can take a long time to rebuild their strength. They can be gone for months, years or even quit their job . Therefore an important resource is temporarily unavailable or lost and it might be necessary to hire new replacements to the lost resources. Hiring new people requires on boarding and training, while their performance in the beginning is low until they become adjusted to the new work environment. When you are working with a time limited project, there might not be time to onboard new employees, which means as a project manager you might have to accept the quality of work might going down or the need to hire expensive consultants. This might in turn make the customers unhappy.

Project management and stress

This topic discusses how project management also is stressful. And how it is important to stress manage not only the employees but the project manager himself, to accommodate all the changes which can happen.

Who is responsible for managing stress

This topic discusses who is actually responsible for managing the stress of the employees. Should the company manage their employees? Is it a waste of money? Is it up to one self to make sure you don’t burn out.

Benefits of managing employee stress

This topic will explain what benefits one can receive from managing employee stress. Reference: Manage employee stress Reference: Occupational stress and employee turnover Reference: Stress detection and management

Stress management (Tools, pros/cons/limitations)

This topic discusses the tools used to manage stress such as time, communication etc.

Reference – time and stress management Reference - https://www.sundhed.dk/borger/sundhed-og-forebyggelse/livsstil/stress/ Reference causes and management of stress Reference management of occupational stress Reference Occupational stress chapter 18 Reference what causes stress in information system

Resource criticality

This topic is where we look at the resources and how relevant they are (some are quite old) to todays situation.

Conclusion

This is how far I made it. This is a work in progress.Only wrote approximately half by now. There will be more. The references for each topic has been found, just have to write the rest. The wiki is also not set up properly yet, and the references aren’t properly put in the text, because I have not written a wiki before, but here is a little less than the first half.