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WHAT ARE THE ISSUES SURROUNDING MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE?”Remember it’s a Key QUESTION. If the Examiner asks you what it is, don’t write “Stress”. “Stress” isn’t a question. Questions have question marks at the end and start with a word like “what”.
The exam may ask you to “summarise” your Key Question. This means giving some of the information below. FEATURES OF STRESS IN THE WORKPLACE
“Features” means facts about your Key Issue – what forms does it takes, what types are there? (You’re not talking any Psychology here. It’s general knowledge really.) Later you can explain the biological psychology behind the idea of the stress response
According to the HSE (Health and Safety Executive), in 2015/16 over 480,000 people in the UK reported that work-related stress was making them ill - over 11 million days are lost at work every year due to stress. This amounts to nearly 40% of all work-related illness.
Stress is defined as the 'adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them' - Health & Safety Executive (HSE) Workers benefit from pressure in their work - it's motivating and produces ambition - but when there is too much pressure, workers become overloaded. Stress can lead to anxiety and depression and increase the risk of heart disease, back pain, gastrointestinal illnesses or skin conditions.
The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) has identified the six causes of work-related stress:
SICK BUILDING SYNDROME
Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) is a set of symptoms linked to working in an unhealthy environment. The NHS lists these symptoms:
SBS was first noticed in the 1970s and classified as a problem by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1986. A series of studies in Sweden linked SBS to allergies and suggested that modern buildings with air conditioning systems exposed workers to chemicals that had harmful long-term effects. Women seem to suffer from SBS more than men, but it's not clear if women are just more likely to report the symptoms.
However, Marmot et al. (2005) suggest that the cause is more likely to be psycho-social than environmental. Azuma et al. (2014) link specific work-related stressors with specific SBS symptoms:
[We] don’t really know whether it’s the building or it’s the people - Alan Hedge Long article from The Independent which interviews sufferers and considers whether SBS is a valid diagnosis or not
COMPUTER SCREENS MAKE YOU SICKSpending just five hours a day in front of a computer increases the risk of depression and insomnia, according to Nakazawa et al. (2002). This study involved 25,000 people over a 3-year period and concluded that too much screen time is damaging the mental health of employees.
Staff at a large Japanese IT company complained of feeling depressed, anxious and reluctant to get up for work in the mornings. Many reported problems getting along with fellow workers and experienced broken sleep and daytime fatigue. ... the prevention of mental disorders and sleep disorders requires the restriction of computer use to less than five hours a day - Dr Tetsuya Nakazawa Previous research focused on how computers affect physical health (e.g. sitting at terminals has been linked with repetitive strain injury, eyestrain and back pain).
Researchers suggest the effects of computers at work might be due to:
WORKPLACE BULLYINGBullying makes someone feel intimidated or offended. Examples of bullying behaviour include:
Bullying itself isn’t against the law, but harassment is unlawful under the Equality Act 2010. Harassment is when the bullying behaviour is related to age, sex, disability, gender, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and sexual orientation. According to a YouGov Poll, 29% of people have been the victims of workplace bullying - that's nearly 3 in every 10 workers or 9.1 million of the UK workforce. In November 2015, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitrary Service (Acas) reported that their helpline receives 20,000 phone calls every year in relation to bullying. Acas claims that bullying at work costs the UK economy £18 billion a year (a combination of sickness-related absences, staff turnover and lowered productivity).
Cyber-bullying is any form of abuse that uses technology to harass a person, such as social media, email and SMS texts. According to UNISON, 80% of workers had experienced some form of cyber-bullying with nearly one in five people facing cyber-abuse at least once a week. Because mobile technology is always 'on' this means that victims often get no break from the abuse - even outside of work hours.
WELLBEING AT WORKCompanies are becoming more aware of stress and poor mental health at work. They are countering this by promoting "Wellbeing"
Wellbeing can be understood as how people feel and how they function, both on a personal and a social level, and how they evaluate their lives as a whole - New Economics Foundation Wellbeing can be measured using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS). This is a questionnaire of 14 positively worded items, such as ‘I’ve been feeling optimistic about the future’ and ‘I’ve been interested in new things’. Respondents choose the answer that best describes their experience over the last two weeks, using a five point scale: this leads to a score between 14 and 70, with a higher score indicating better wellbeing.
In 2017, nearly half (48 per cent) of UK businesses offered something to promote wellbeing in the workplace. Examples include:
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APPLYING PSYCHOLOGY TO THE KEY QUESTION
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WORKPLACE BULLYING
This is a purely psycho-social phenomenon that can be made worse by office layout (enabling bullying bosses to spy on workers) and computer-use (enabling bullies to harass workers at work and outside working hours).
Psychological Explanation
Lots of psychology of aggression and prejudice explains workplace bullying. Adorno's theory of the Authoritarian Personality explains the workplace bully who likes to obey the boss and harass juniors. Social Identity Theory explains why a group (such as longstanding employees) might harass someone they see as being from an out-group (such as a new employee). Realistic Conflict Theory explains bullying when people are worried that their job or promotion is at risk.
Most workplace bullying is social (or relational) aggression, which is studied by Brendgen's Twin Study. If bosses see the bully as a 'good manager' who 'pushes his staff' then this behaviour may be rewarded (positive reinforcement) and the bully may be a role-model who is imitated by others (social learning theory).
Lots of psychology of aggression and prejudice explains workplace bullying. Adorno's theory of the Authoritarian Personality explains the workplace bully who likes to obey the boss and harass juniors. Social Identity Theory explains why a group (such as longstanding employees) might harass someone they see as being from an out-group (such as a new employee). Realistic Conflict Theory explains bullying when people are worried that their job or promotion is at risk.
Most workplace bullying is social (or relational) aggression, which is studied by Brendgen's Twin Study. If bosses see the bully as a 'good manager' who 'pushes his staff' then this behaviour may be rewarded (positive reinforcement) and the bully may be a role-model who is imitated by others (social learning theory).
Issues for Society
The trick for managers is to distinguish between behaviour which is genuinely motivational (such as setting high standards, pushing workers to achieve the best and disciplining workers who break the rules) as opposed to bullying and harassment (which sets impossible standards, pushes workers too far and unfairly selects certain individuals for discipline).
Understanding of workplace bullying has improved in recent years and many business put managers through skills training to recognise bullying behaviours in themselves or others and employ Human Resources (HR) officers to make sure that managers get the best out of staff without causing them emotional or psychological harm.
The trick for managers is to distinguish between behaviour which is genuinely motivational (such as setting high standards, pushing workers to achieve the best and disciplining workers who break the rules) as opposed to bullying and harassment (which sets impossible standards, pushes workers too far and unfairly selects certain individuals for discipline).
Understanding of workplace bullying has improved in recent years and many business put managers through skills training to recognise bullying behaviours in themselves or others and employ Human Resources (HR) officers to make sure that managers get the best out of staff without causing them emotional or psychological harm.
WELLBEING AT WORK
"Wellbeing" is a bit of a buzz word in modern workplaces, which focus on creating environments that produce happy, healthy, motivated workers rather than allowing staff to become stressed and sick and only dealing with the problem then. Wellbeing Programmes can be expensive to set up and run (either because they involve spending money on new resources or because they involve paying staff to do something other than work), however there is a huge saving to be made by reducing absences due to stress-related illness.
Psychological Explanation
Salvatore Maddi (1981) studied why some workers succumb to stress but others don't. Maddi studied a big company that was laying off workers and noticed that some workers coped with the stress but others became anxious and ill. He used psychometric tests on the workers to come up with the concept of HARDINESS, which is a sort of built-in stress resistance.
Hardiness is composed of the 'three Cs':
Salvatore Maddi (1981) studied why some workers succumb to stress but others don't. Maddi studied a big company that was laying off workers and noticed that some workers coped with the stress but others became anxious and ill. He used psychometric tests on the workers to come up with the concept of HARDINESS, which is a sort of built-in stress resistance.
Hardiness is composed of the 'three Cs':
- Challenge: hardy individuals see problems as challenges rather than threats (which there is a tendency to try and avoid); if a problem is a challenge, you look for solutions and pursue the possibilities of a successful outcome.
- Control: hardy individuals do not become overwhelmed or helpless, but try to gain control of what they can; they develop a positive, optimistic, hopeful outlook and try to feel in charge of circumstances.
- Commitment: this refers to persevering or sticking it out through a hard time; hardy individuals overcome occasional losses of motivation and remain steadfast in their efforts.
Issues for Society
Hardiness is about having positive cognitions, so this relates to the cognitive triad and using CBT to help workers cope with stress. However, there is a debate about whether employers should try to build hardiness into their workers or whether they should just try to select for hardiness at the recruitment stage (perhaps getting applicants to fill out questionnaires and just hiring the ones who score high for hardiness).
Hardiness seems to be something people acquire quite early in life and it's harder to change powerful LEARNED COGNITIONS later on. This means that instilling hardiness in children is really a job for parents and teachers.
Hardiness is about having positive cognitions, so this relates to the cognitive triad and using CBT to help workers cope with stress. However, there is a debate about whether employers should try to build hardiness into their workers or whether they should just try to select for hardiness at the recruitment stage (perhaps getting applicants to fill out questionnaires and just hiring the ones who score high for hardiness).
Hardiness seems to be something people acquire quite early in life and it's harder to change powerful LEARNED COGNITIONS later on. This means that instilling hardiness in children is really a job for parents and teachers.
This school's policy for promoting hardiness has divided the Internet. Read about it in the Daily Mail.
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EXEMPLAR ESSAY
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