Increasing demands being placed on workers in all settings are taking their toll, one that can present as job stress and burnout.

The reality is that presently, these are the two most important occupational health and safety concerns affecting workers. This is partly due to the major debilitating consequences that have been linked to these problems.

Personal, social and organizational effects, so interconnected that considering them separately is difficult. (But we will try.)

What are these Consequences?

These include:

• those that are harmful to you personally;

For example, for the individual worker, this degenerative impact has been linked with various self-reported indexes of distress such as insomnia, alcoholism, as well as an increased use of other drugs;

• those that can negatively impact the organization where you work;

Research indicates that reciprocally, worker stress can also be a factor in absenteeism, labour turnover, and reduced productivity;

• those that can be detrimental to social networks;

In other words, such effects can spill over, spreading through a family, putting its structure at risk, and even into our communities, with the less clear, indirect cost of treatment.

Clearly, job stress and burnout are critical issues for all of society!

BUT WHAT IS STRESS

Stress is a collective term describing psychological and physical factors impacting, precipitating changes in the body. (In this hub, the terms stress and stressor are used to denote situations and events that trigger job stress.)

Stressitself can be differentiated based primarily on duration with:

• ACUTE STRESSORS being atypical and time limited, while

• CHRONIC STRESSORS occur over time, slowly destroying an individual's health.

In any work setting, individuals can encounter both, experiencing effects similar to those in other environments. Although acute stressors that emanate from the work environment have been consistently linked to burnout, the link with chronic work-related stress is strong.

In fact, stressors related to work have been identified as primary factors in the aetiology of burnout, with burnout being the final step in a succession of ineffective efforts by a worker to cope with stress.When stress in a worker reaches the burnout stage, that worker's energies become focused on survival - getting through the workday is the highest priority.

CAUSES (of Worker Stress)

Endeavouring to identify factors that directly or indirectly influence worker stress and burnout, researchers have studied aspects of the work environment delineated variously as

organizational design or work setting characteristics or structural organizational factors

(Conditions that are readily controlled and equally evident in many work environments.)

Evidence from such research linked burnout to the nature of work and the organizational conditions in which workers function.

In fact a strong link was established between certain variables (e.g., organizational factors) and burnout.

Two (2) major organizational factors were identified - Role Structures and Power Structures:

A. Role Structures

Specified among others were:

1. Characteristics of a role (such as role ambiguity and role conflict, and how much challenge, variety, and autonomy are available to a worker). For example, role conflict and ambiguity function as stressors when workers encounter contradicting expectations about their role, or are unsusre about what they should be doing.

To prevent this, the optimal role structure is one that decreases role conflict and ambiguity while maximizing variety, task identity, and learning;

2. Constraints in the work environment;

3. Features of the job itself;

4. Job deficits or unmet expectations.

B. Power Structures

Included were:

1. Centralized, Hierarchial Decision-Making. This power structure limits worker autonomy and control. (Understandable since lack of control or autonomy at work is a prime contributor to stress and burnout);

2. Degree of Worker Participation and Involvement in Decision-Making Processes. Essentially, while participation and involvement in decision-making enhances the autonomy and control workers have in the environment, nonparticipation fosters stress and burnout by decreasing autonomy and control.

Obviously aspects of the design of the organization (e.g., role and power structure) affect the extent to which workers experience role ambiguity and conflict. These are factors that are significant contributers to job stress and burnout. Additionally, such factors also influence how much meaning, variety, autonomy and control are available to workers. These are also variables that significantly affect levels of stress and burnout in workers.

However the reality is

that the causes of work-related stress and burnout is multifactorial, with a combination of interacting stressors contributing to each individual case.

Basically, each incidence of burnout is the result of an interplay between both work and non work-related stressors.

These are PRIMARY and SECONDARY in natures, with secondary factors compounding the effects of primary ones, tilting the balance toward burnout.

C. Primary Stressors (i.e., other documented 'common' work-related causes of stress and burnout):

3. Bureaucracy. Moreover, the larger, more bureaucratic and impersonal an organization, the greater the incidence of job dissatisfaction, job turnover, and burnout;

4. Job dissatisfaction. Work environments that constrain autonomy and promote bureaucracy negatively effect workers, inducing the development of dissatisfaction and burnout. Diminished job satisfaction functions as a determinant for job stress and burnout, in that a worker's attitude has implications for the way that a person copes with stress emanating from work. However, the direction of this relationship may be reciprocal since job stress also leads to job dissatisfaction. (Job satisfaction refers to a worker's general attitude toward work, the positive aspect of an overall subjective assessment of the environment.);

5. Aversive Environmental & Physical Conditions;

6. Irrelevant Duties;

7. Isolation;

8, Lack of Rewards;

9. Work Overload. In fact, excessive workload (i.e., work overload) is a correlate of burnout. Conversely, work underload is equally stress producing, consequences of not having enough to do include monotony and boredom, major contributers to stress and burnout. Basically, a key element in preventing job-related stress and burnout is the maintenance of reasonable workloads for all workers;

10. Job Demands of Certain Occcupations. Whereas the job demands of specific occupations are antecedents for stress and burnout, it is not surprising workers in the human service sector are more subject to stress than those in product-oriented occupations. Nonetheless, although such work is highly conducive, constantly 'burning-out' employees, risk is not equal in all settings. The upshot is that it is inappropriate to articulate work-related stressors as ubiquitous. In short, causal factors for job stress and burnout are not universal; Not all human sector workers are stressed or candidates for burnout!

11. Contact. This can be client, patient, student and/or customer;

12. Lack of Support;

D. Secondary Stressors

1. Each worker's Coping Repertoire;

2. Each worker's Background (e.g., age, marital status);

3. Personal Factors (i.e., personality, life changes);

Male vs. Female

4. Gender. In respect to the stressors female workers experience, gender must be included as a secondary contributor. Whereas stress accumulates across settings so that female workers fulfilling additional oles (e.g., child care) can experience more total stress than male workers, some female workers are at a greater risk for burnout. Yet this issue is more complex than the number of roles filled. Women also confront stressors such as stereotyping and tokenism not experienced by their male counterparts. Such factors can also negatively affect interactions between colleagues, increasing the propensity for stress.

What does this all mean?

Overall, although stressors may effect temporary changes, most stressed workers do not necessarily burnout. This is because factors such as perceptions can act as Buffers, counterbalancing the impact of stressors.

In short, burnout, is not the result of stress, but of unmediated stress.

The presence (or absence) of such buffers also explains the variance that exists in workers' reactions since all workers do not react similarily to the same stressors. For example, identical stressors may engender a reaction in one worker, no reaction in another, or variable reactions in the same worker at differing times. Such differences also emphasize the need for individualization in stress management, for strategies that eschew a 'one size fits all' approach.

The guiding principle must always be flexibility in response to the individual parameters of each situation.

One Solution

Job stress is widely recognized as one of the most prevalent, debilitating, and costly problems that society faces, now and in the foreseeable future. However, its best understood as a process initiated by a diverse array of factors, mediated by a host of others, and if not stemmed, resulting in burnout.

Fortunately, one of the most effective means of intervention for workers experiencing job stress and burnout can be found in their personal and work environment(s).

Evidence shows that social support from family, colleagues and others can have a major impact on the stress experience, counteracting adverse effects, and enhancing general well-being. Social support augments the ability to cope with stress by moderating its effect, reducing the possibility of burnout.

Support can come from a myriad of sources!

For example, family, friends and others provide support when they engage in ongoing mutual interactions with stressed workers, showing emotional concern and providing instrumental information.

At the worksite, this support can emanate from colleagues, administrators and others.

Here administrators (managers, supervisors etc.,) at all levels, can fulfill a critical role structuring the social network available for workers.

Still some environments are more supportive than others, the supportiveness of co-workers indicative both of personal traits and of each work site's culture and policies. The degree to which the system itself condones and actively encourages support depends on the perspective of administrators and the larger economic system.

(References available upon request)

Numerous sites are available on various aspects of the topic of Job Stress and Burnout.

Here is one: hubpages.com/hub/Job_/burnout