Investigating the Diffusion of Workload-Induced Stress—A Simulation Approach

Niyi Ogunbiyi,Artie Basukoski,Thierry Chaussalet

doi:10.3390/info12010011

Abstract

Work-induced stress is widely acknowledged as harming physical and psychosocial health and has been linked with adverse outcomes such as a decrease in productivity. Recently, workplace stressors have increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to contribute to the literature base in a couple of areas. First, it extends the current knowledge base by utilising generative additive modelling (GAMs) to uncover the nature of the relationship between workload (a key workplace stressor) and productivity based on real-world event logs. Additionally, it uses recursive partitioning modelling to shed light on the factors that drive the relationship between these variables. Secondly, it utilises a simulation-based approach to investigate the diffusion of workload-induced stress in the workplace. Simulation is a valuable tool for exploring the effect of changes in a risk-free manner as it provides the ability to run multiple scenarios in a safe and virtual environment with a view to making recommendations to stakeholders. However, there are several recognised issues with traditional simulation approaches, such as inadequate resource modelling and the limited use of simulations for operational decision making. In this study, we propose an approach which extracts the required parameters from an event log and subsequently utilises them to initialise a workload-induced stress diffusion simulation model accurately. We also explore the effects of varying the parameters to control the spread of workload-induced stress within the network. With suitable amendments, this approach can be extended to model the spread of disease (e.g., COVID-19), diffusion of ideas, among other things, in the workplace.

Highlights

Received: 2 December 2020 Accepted: 23 December 2020 Published: 26 December 2020Work-induced stress is defined as “the change in one’s physical or mental state in response to workplaces that pose an appraised challenge or threat to that employee” [1]
In the second half of this study, we discover a social network from an event log and utilise the network properties to initiate a simulation model which explores the spread of workload-induced stress
This study has attempted to uncover the nature of the relationship between workload and productivity from a couple of real-world event log utilising generalised additive model (GAM)

Summary

Introduction

Received: 2 December 2020 Accepted: 23 December 2020 Published: 26 December 2020. Work-induced stress is defined as “the change in one’s physical or mental state in response to workplaces that pose an appraised challenge or threat to that employee” [1]. The impact of workplace stress includes “increased absenteeism, organizational dysfunction, and decreased work productivity” [1]. Workplace stress has been linked to higher. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. A key stressor in the workplace is the workload and pace of work [3]. Numerous studies have explored the relationship between workload and productivity. [4] proposed a quadratic relationship between arousal (a proxy for workload-induced stress) and performance (see Figure 1) Ref. [4] proposed a quadratic relationship between arousal (a proxy for workload-induced stress) and performance (see Figure 1)

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Results

Conclusion