How Occupational Stress Impacts On Employee Performance

Aneeta Weerasekara
2 min readFeb 29, 2024

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Occupational stress can have significant impacts on performance management in several ways:

Reduced Performance: Prolonged stress can harm one’s ability to think clearly, make sound decisions, and perform well overall. Stressed-out workers may find it harder to concentrate, make mistakes more often, and struggle to finish jobs quickly.

Increased Absenteeism: Stress-related illnesses may cause workers to take time off from work in order to recuperate or because they may feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities of their jobs.

Decreased Engagement: Prolonged stress can cause workers to become disengaged and less motivated. This may lead to a decrease in the amount of effort put forth in completing activities and a decrease in commitment to organizational goals.

Negative Effects on Health: Extended exposure to work-related stress can lead to a number of health problems, including mental health disorders like anxiety and depression as well as physical conditions like headaches, exhaustion, and digestive problems. An increase in presenteeism (being physically present but mentally absent) and absenteeism can result from poor health, which can further exacerbate performance concerns.

Strained Relationships :Stress can cause interpersonal disputes and strained relationships between team members as well as between workers and managers. In the end, this may have an impact on performance management procedures including goal-setting, feedback, and performance reviews. It can also impede cooperation, communication, and teamwork.

Impact on Performance measures: Productivity, work quality, and customer happiness are just a few of the important performance measures that stress can affect. Stressed-out workers may do worse quality job, make more mistakes or accidents, and serve clients with less excellence.

Burnout: Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical weariness marked by feelings of cynicism, detachment, and ineffectiveness. Excessive professional stress can contribute to burnout. An individual’s capacity to perform well can be severely hampered by burnout, which can also cause employee turnover and talent loss in an organization.

Organizations can use tactics like stress management training, work-life balance, supportive organizational culture, employee assistance programs, and routinely identifying and resolving stress sources in the workplace to lessen the detrimental effects of occupational stress on performance management. Additionally, stress can be decreased and performance management results can be enhanced by effective communication, acknowledging employee contributions, and offering opportunity for autonomy and advancement.

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