Occupational Health Psychology
INP3004
In my experience as an employee, I have always had to juggle between my responsibilities as an employee and my duty as a child to my mother. My mother has had this condition that will arise at a moment’s notice, and it would require me to halt anything I am doing to be there. This is the only stress that I have mostly had in my career. I have had to ask for permission for quite a number of times to go and take care of mum when she is not feeling well.
According to this week’s discussion, this kind of stressor is known as role conflict, and to be specific, it is an extrarole conflict. Extrarole conflicts occur between demands from work and nonwork domains. I was an employee responsible for overseeing that 50 of my colleagues perform their work excellently and in turn, keep our customer base. However, from time to time, I could be called home to go and take care of my mum.
As I was going through a hard phase in life, I was lucky to have an understanding manager who always let me take a day off and stay with my mum. However, this situation made me develop some psychological reactions. I was always anxious every time I was at work. I was aware that these could affect my job performance, and thus I had to deal with the issue before it permanently affected my performance. With my position, I was able to earn enough, which allowed me to get a caregiver for my mum.
Some situations, such as mine, require employees to stay away from their work for a while. However, organizations can prevent stress processes that arise as a result of such situations from occurring. For example, if an employee always arrives late because of family issues, it is possible for the organization to give such an employee a flexible work schedule so that they don’t stress over getting to work late. Employees can also work extra time to cover for the time they lost while attending to nonwork-related issues.
Employees can deal with stress in several ways. The first way to deal with stress is by keeping a positive attitude always and accepting that there are some events that are out of their control. Employees should be assertive but not aggressive, and at the same time, they should adopt and practice various relaxation techniques. All the above-mentioned techniques will help employees manage their stress well.