Workplace Resources to Enhance Your Sense of Balance and Well-Being
What causes job stress and what motivates employees has been a widely researched topic in the past decades. Job design theories have often ignored the role of job stressors (demands) while job stress models have ignored the motivating potential of job resources. Bakker & Demerouti (2007,2011) created the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, which has been used to predict burnout, organizational commitment, work enjoyment, connectedness and work engagement.
‘Stressed spelled backwards is desserts‘ – Loretta Laroche
Organizations can utilize the JD-R model so they can enhance employee wellbeing and motivation while also optimizing various organizational outcomes (Galanakis & Tsitouri, 2022).
High-demand tasks or job might include:
- Long work hours
- High workload, fast work pace or significant time pressure
- Long periods of attention
- Emotional effort in responding to distressing situations
- Emotional effort required to display emotions the organisation requires when the emotions do not align with those of the employee
- Exposure to traumatic events or work-related violence
- Shift work
- Frequently working in unpleasant or hazardous conditions
- Having to perform demanding work while wearing uncomfortable protective clothing or equipment
- Working with clients with challenging behaviours
Job resources are the physical, social or organizational factors that help employees achieve goals and reduce stress. They include autonomy, strong work relationships, opportunities for advancement, coaching and mentoring, and learning and development. Job resources help individuals cope with their work demands and other organisational stressors.
When job demands are high, additional effort must be exerted to achieve the work goals and to prevent decreasing performance (Schaufeli & Taris, 2014). When a job becomes more stressful, stable resources become more important (Bakker & de Vries, 2019). Job resources become more salient and acquire their motivational potential when employees are faced with high job demands (Galanakis & Tsitouri, 2022). Organizational resources such as human resource practices and healthy leadership may help employees to regulate their short-term fatigue and avoid enduring burnout (Bakker & de Vries, 2019). At the same time key resources that one posesses such as emotional intelligence and proactive personality can help employees regulate fatigue (Bakker & de Vries, 2019).
To manage stress at the workplace more effectively, start with identifying and acknowledging what are the job demands or stressors you are exposed to and whether you can influence any of them. How do you know whether you can influence them ? Examine the (job) resources you possess such as work relationships and autonomy. What the things that give you energy ? Tip: Write them down!
Now, can you find a balance between what takes energy away from you and what gives you energy?
