In an occupational health and safety sense, stress is essentially a misfit between a worker’s needs and capabilities, and what the workplace offers and demands.

A ‘good job’ usually involves a measure of positive stimuli, which encourages the worker to perform well and gain job satisfaction as a result. On the other hand, many jobs involve negative factors that put unwanted pressure on the worker, leading to adverse consequences. This is the process we call ‘stress’.

Stress can lead to harmful affects on health, behaviour and social relationships.

Stress can be an important factor in other workplace accidents.

Factors, which contribute to stress, fall into a number of categories, including physical, organisational, industrial and social.

The following diagram can illustrate this process:

 Many work factors can be identified as potential or candidate STRESSORS. These factors, all requiring some response or adaptation by workers, include a poor physical working environment and poor organisation or job design. 

STRESSORS

Work related stressors could include:

Stress occurs through a number of steps, or a process. Workers attempt to cope with stress in a number of ways and with varying degrees of success. However, if the person is consistently exposed to stressful situations, adverse consequences will result. When the body is exposed to a stress, the level of hormones in the body increases to mobilise energy resources in preparation to ‘fight or flee’ the situation. This response may be appropriate in the case of a Stone Age person confronted by a wild beast, but should be out of place in today’s work environment.

EFFECTS OF STRESS

As for stress being good for you, it’s only necessary to look at some of its effects:

BEHAVIOURAL AND SOCIAL EFFECTS

Heavy indulgence in smoking, drinking, alcohol or taking drugs often accompanies physical and psychological reactions to stress, as does impulsive or emotional behaviour.

All these reactions and effects can have a further deleterious social effect - poor relationships with others at home, at work and in the community which may ultimately break down.

CONTROL PREVENTION STRATEGIES

The trade union approach to stress follows the principles of our preferred order of hazard control measures.

That is, we place our emphasis on eliminating or reducing the hazard at its source. This is one of the aims of health and safety legislation.

We seek to identify and eliminate (or substantially reduce) the factors which contribute to stress -–that is, the adverse working conditions.

As with other workplace hazards, intervention at a later stage of the stress processes in far less effective. If consequences have already appeared, workers may try to cope on their own (drug and alcohol taking, leaving the job, etc. or seeking help (medical or psychiatric treatment). Such intervention may provide some relief of the symptoms, but do nothing to tackle the underlying causes. Some ‘cures’, such as drugs (self-administered or prescribed) may result in even worse consequences.

Intervention at this later stage is sometimes called ‘stress management’, and is often regarded as the main, or even the only way to deal with workplace stress. In some cases, it is reduced to telling the worker to do deep breathing exercises or yoga. Regardless of any benefits of deep breathing and yoga, this approach is, in fact, asking workers to fit themselves into adverse working conditions.

The trade union approach is one of designing or changing the workplace, physically and organisationally, to fit workers’ needs.

A strategy to control workplace stress requires us to:

• Identify the workplace factors with a potential to cause stress, by workplace inspection, discussion with workers and medical surveys.
• Assess the specific factors, their affects and causes.
• Control the hazard by negotiating for changes to the physical work environment or the work organisation. Assess the results on an ongoing basis.

SPECIAL PROBLEMS

Some workplaces and occupations pose special problems in eliminating stressors at their source. For instance, nurses and others in the health industry are confronted with trauma, pain, suffering and death. People in emergency services (e.g. firefighters, ambulance officers, search and rescue people) and social workers are often confronted with tragedies. Sometimes an unforeseen workplace situation creates stress.

These seemingly ‘inevitable’ situations should not mean an end to identifying the issues but seeking ways of eliminating or reducing the hazards at source or at the path. For example, by administrative measures which rotate tasks, by distancing or isolating some people from the stress factors, or by providing a more favourable time or place for potentially stressful events to occur. Many supposed ‘unforeseen’ events could be predicted.

In addition, the following should be considered:

• Appropriate training and preparation that can assist employees who may be confronted with tragic or violent situations.
• Congenial workplace relations in which staff can discuss situations informally with informal settings (sometimes with professional help) to provide mutual support and assistance.
• Professional counselling or ‘debriefing’ chosen on an agreed basis, which includes a focus on workplace conditions.

Some of the above information is from VTHC Bulletin No. 54 dated May 1988 “The Process of Stress (Part 1) and VTHC Bulletin No. 55 dated June 1988 “The Process of Stress (Part 2).

See also:

Brain Behaviour Research Institute, Latrobe University Symposium Series No. 1 “Stress At Work”.
Occupational Stress Health and Safety Policy No. 9 (ASRMS), December 1983, sec.
Health and Safety At Work by John Mathews, 1993.
 

OHS Hazard Information Courtesy of
VTHC OHS Training Unit