Friday, October 19, 2007

Top 10 Stressors in the Workplace

No job is completely stress free. There are many things that happen at work that frustrate all of us and stress us out, and we all know that stress is never good for our health. Here are the top 10 reasons work can be so stressful:

1. The amount of work that needs to be done. It can be extremely stressful knowing that you have a huge workload and sometimes it can be hard to find the time to get it all accomplished.

2. Feeling that your work is not fully valued.

3. Work deadlines. Like I said before, it can be hard to find the time to get all of your work done, and it makes it especially stressful knowing that you have deadlines to meet.

4. Sometimes the type of work we are doing can add to the stress. Take IT jobs for example. It can be extremely frustrating when troubleshooting problems and errors, especially when you are not sure what the issue is. And knowing that your customers are expecting to see results can make it even worse!

5. Having to take on other employee's work. Its bad enough worrying about all the work you have to do, let alone doing the other guys work too.

6. Being unhappy with your job position. We all know how much stress doing a job that you dislike can be.

7. Not being in control of the work day. It can be stressful not knowing what exactly is on the agenda for your work day. "Whats the boss got in store for me today?" People like to be in control of what they are spending their time on and it can be frustrating when you have to work on unexpected things.

8. Long hours. Like the Led Zeppelin song 'Since I've Been Loving You' "Ive been working from 7 to 11 every night.. and it kind of makes life a drag."

9. Work Environment. Pesky co-workers, demanding bosses, tempuratures, personal space, interuptions, lack of support from colleagues and managers, desk location, colleagues not pulling their weight, the list could go on and on... all of these things can drive people crazy.

10. Bosses and managers changing their minds about the work they want done. This is self explanatory.

All of these things can cause stress. Corporations can help to reduce a lot of this stress if they pay attention to what is causing most of it. But at the same time the stress really depends on how the individual handles the work day. People have different tolerances for the stuff that they have to put up with from day to day. Now that you know a lot of the reasons for why we get so stressed out you can think of ways to avoid those situations(even though some of them can be inevitable).

Stress is not healthy for anyone, so dont forget to take a deep breath and relax a little bit during the work day.

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