Employees are exposed to a stressful work environment that intoxicates their ability to deliver on the organization's objectives and achieve personal ambitions and quality life. Factors within and outside the organization contribute to the stress level. Management processes, work demands, poor communication, lack of transparency, conflicting roles, and effort-reward imbalance, among others, cause stress among the employees. Employees have different abilities to cope with stress. Resilient employees recover easily from stress and exercise constructive coping strategies with the less resilient ones tend to succumb to the workplace vice, which may make them quit working or perform poorly. Work flexibility has been adapted to improve employee satisfaction in the work environment. Other strategies include management of their mental health and development of workplace policies that protect and improve the work environment and the adoption of information technology in their stress management. Toxic work environments create demotivated employees incapable of meeting the organization's objectives and goals.
Causes of Stress and Hostility at Workplace
Management practice results in employee stress. Hostile management practices are the leading cause of employee stress and include lack of support, unrealistic demands, lack of appreciation, low decision latitude, unfair treatment, poor communication, and lack of transparency, conflicting roles, and effort-reward imbalance ( Bhui at al., 2016 ). Management styles built on these weaknesses treat followers as lesser beings, which causes resistance from the team. The management practices result in pressure on the employees who react in processes that cause psychological harm. Workplace stress causes deterioration of one’s physical and mental health.
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Other factors causing workplace stress include economic crisis that leads to recessions, which are characterized, by loss of jobs, job strain on the few that retain their positions, life events, nature of the job, and financial factors . Stress occurs at various levels with various environmental and individual variables being at play. Stress models postulate that stress can be caused by an individual’s poor response to stressors, interaction with environmental factors, or psychological predispositions (Maulik, 201 7). Psychological predispositions imply that some employees are more likely to experience stress than others when placed under similar working conditions. Stress levels rise when the external conditions do not meet the employee's internal desires or resources. The desires are associated with the needs and wishes while the resources refer to the ability to manage the stressing factors ( Bhui at al., 2016). Exposure to heavy workloads, long working hours, small rooms, noisy offices, and understaffing causes vulnerable employees to suffer greater levels of stress.
Workplace bullying and harassment are prevalent problems that result in employees' depression. Organizations are lax in addressing the problem; depressed are victimized through discrimination at their workplaces or when they seek work elsewhere (Maulik, 2017). Women and even male employees at the lower levels are likely to experience sexual harassment and bullying as compared to those at higher levels. Organizations such as the United Nations and International Covenant on Economic , and documentation such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have established policies dealing with workplace stress, but these are loosely implemented (Maulik, 2017). The neglect of the employees' concerns, poor management system, workplace bullying, and sexual harassment, slothful mitigation systems, and employee predisposition to high-stress levels have the potential to cause workplace stress and hostility.
Impact of Stress and Hostility on Employee Performance
Stress and hostility create a toxic working environment that has negative impacts on employee performance. Toxic work environment reduces productivity and organizational performance. Organizations are known to focus on profit at the expense of employees’ welfare. The low regard is a misplacement of value since the employees are the first line assets. Human resource management is expected to improve employee management and enhance their commitment and productivity. Focus on employee needs regulates stress levels that arise when they are dissatisfied with their work environment. The work environment determines the productivity of employees as it contributes to 80% of their concerns employees face ( Anjum, Ming, Siddiqi, & Rasool, 2018 ). The work environment consists of systems, situations, and conditions under which the employees are required to perform their duties. Toxic environment cause toxic employees, unlike collaborative environments that foster thriving personnel. A collaborative environment has a community-centered approach that provides the correct situation, condition, and system that enables the employees to perform optimally with right psychological and physical wellness ( Anjum, Ming, Siddiqi & Rasool, 2018 ). Employers and employees also influence environmental conditions because they have the responsibility of ensuring that the work environment is safe. The environment quality influences the achievement of the organization goals. Employees that are satisfied with their environment are willing to learn new skills and are motivated to work ( Al-Omari & Okasheh, 2017 ). Therefore, imperative employees and employers should collaborate in the improvement of the work environment. Employees should communicate their environmental needs, and the employer should respond fast and efficiently in addressing the concerns. They should address environmental conditions that are within their control. Some of such factors include noise levels, use of equipment, and relationship and they influence the quality of the work environment and have the potential in disrupting harmony at the workplace if they are not properly managed.
Individual Abilities to endure Stress and Hostility
Employees' ability to respond to a toxic environment depends on the predisposition of each employee. Ability to cope with stressing factors is directly proportional to resilience. Workers with high resilience recover fast and efficiently from stress as compared to those with low resilience capabilities. Resilience is recognized by the science body to be a major tool for managing stress among workers. Resilient workers are capable of recovering from stressing factors, recognizing, and using them as an opportunity to improve their performance ( Kermot et al., 2019 ). Therefore, the level of resilience influences life expectancy because the employees enjoy a good quality of life, are less likely to commit suicide, and are hardly exposed to psychological distress. Interpersonal stress is also a significant cause of workplace stress and hostility ( Taniguchi, 2016 ). Interpersonal stress occurs between employees and can be resolved through constructive coping, distancing coping, or reassessing coping. Distancing coping entails strategies that disrupt damage and dissolve existing relationships. Reassessing coping technique is accomplished by waiting until favorable opportunities present for resolving the stress. Constructive coping is positive as characterized by efforts to maintain, improve, and correct stressful relationship. The choice of a coping strategy depends on an individual’s perception of the evaluation they will receive from others ( Taniguchi, 2016 ). Employees who fear negative evaluation use distancing and reassessing strategies. Resilient ones have low fear for evaluation and are ready to confront loneliness and other stress factors. Coaching on resilience is important in managing stress at workplaces.
Besides training employees to adopt a resilient approach to stress, Organizations have adopted workplace flexibility to improve their employees' satisfaction and performance. For instance, organizations arrange work schedules that allow their employees to balance their life and work, hire a temporary workforce to manage an understaffed team and train their labor force to boost the input of the older employees that are exhausted ( Shah & Gregar, 2019 ). Providing employees with sufficient time to conduct their life activities such as family and recreational matters boost their psychological strength to overcome workplace stress and motivation levels. Flexible schedules improve employee's output potential and result in the improvement of organizational performance.
Technologies have been incorporated into the health care system to manage Work Stress and Hostility. Research by Jung et al. (2019) demonstrated the improvement of the ability to cope up with stress in a sample of forty-two women subjected to an online mind-body training program on stress, coping strategies, emotional intelligence, resilience, and psychological state training. The forty-two women were found to respond better to stress as compared to a control sample of forty-five women that did not receive the treatment. Other studies on similar training technique are effective in improving mood and low-stress perception. Virtual teams can benefit from such programs. Since they are limited by geographical distance, language barrier, and cultural barriers, virtual teams are prone to stressful working conditions. Organizing virtual classes and programs on stress management can assist such teams in improving their stress management levels and work relations. Organizations should adopt policies that foster healthy work environments and programs that cater to employees' mental health (Maulik, 2017).
Conclusion
Effective management of employee stress is imperative to an organization's performance. Healthy employees perform better over those who have poor coping strategies to stress. Workplace hostility is manifested in various forms including bullying, sexual harassment and toxic work conditions characterized by poor employee management, understaffing, high work demands, lack of appreciation, and inflexible programs that influence work-life balance. Although organizations and employees can be blamed for the occurrence of stressful workplace conditions, they also play a part in its management. Resilient employees use constructive coping techniques to build healthy relationships and overcome work stress. They contribute the maximum of their time and energy to the work, thereby improving the organization and their satisfaction. Less resilient employees suffer from stress and are likely to commit suicide and other destructive responses. Educating them on resilience will improve their ability to cope in toxic environments. Organizations go additional miles to create a flexible work environment and policies that improve employee's mental health and secure community-centered environment.
References
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