Stress Management in the Modern Workplace and the Role of Human Resource Professionals

Abstract

Due to the potentially negative impact on the employees’ well-being and productivity, the stress in the workplace becomes one of the most difficult problems for the enterprise’s successful operation. The frequency of its manifestations in the workplace is constantly increasing. These issues are especially relevant in the Covid-19 era when HR managers constantly have to form and implement policies to protect the employees’ mental health and general working conditions. It creates the preconditions to identify the factors underlying the occurrence of stress and employees’ potential behavioral responses. The aim of this study is to analyze and evaluate certain aspects of stress in the workplace. Based on the systematization of the results from previous research and interviews with five experienced heads and managers of Vietnamese companies, the article identifies and classifies common reasons, signs, symptoms, and consequences of workers’ stress. The classification of stress in the workplace into three categories (acute stress, episodic acute and chronic stress) forms the basis for identifying the source of stress as a result of the manifestation of factors which differ from the usual ones for the worker, taking into account their external and internal peculiarities. The article proposes an approach based on a combination of psychological, physiological, and autonomic methods to measure stress. It takes into account its cognitive, physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms to increase the accuracy for evaluating the practical application of stress minimization strategy. The paper examines the relationship between individual, organizational and financial effects of stress. It identifies four problems faced by staff in the workplace: identifying the reasons for stress, identifying ways to minimize it, resolving conflict, and developing proposals and recommendations for reducing stress. According to the analysis of five interviews with experienced managers from Vietnamese companies, there are recommendations on how to form and implement stress management strategies for human resource managers. Primary, secondary and tertiary approaches to workplace stress reduction are proposed based on managers’ individual and organizational interventions focused on different goals. Thus, human resource managers play an essential role in the development of stress management strategies to facilitate the interactive internal exchange of information and to establish a balanced personnel structure of the organization. Keywords: Eustress, Distress, Stress, Stress Management, Workplace.