Job Stress and Satisfaction in USA | How to cope

Introduction 

Job stress is a crucial obstacle for employee. It may hamper one’s satisfaction of life. Work-related stress is a pattern of reactions that occurs when service holders are presented with work demands that are not matched to their knowledge, skills or abilities and which may challenge their coping ability. These types of demand may be correlated to time pressure or the quantity of work (quantitative demands) or may refer to the complexity of the work (cognitive demands) or the essential empathy (emotional demands) or even to the lack of ability to show one’s emotions at work. Demands may also be physical such as elevated load in the area of dynamic and static loads.

Job Stress

The term ‘Stress’ was came from Latin word ‘Stringere’ which is to draw tight. Stress is a lively condition in which an individual is confronted with a chance, demand or resource related to what the individual desires and for which the result is perceived.

Stress in the job place is not a new incident, but it is a great threat of employee’s health, satisfaction and well-being than ever before. Though technology has made aspects of many jobs easier, it has also added to the problems of job place, life thorough information load, heightened pressure for productivity and a threatening sense of impermanence in the job place.

Unfortunately, for many people “stress” has become synonymous with work. Work place stress is usually the result of high demands on the job real or passive lack of control concerning those demands poor day today organization and communication and an uncooperative work environment.

Job satisfaction

Job or employee satisfaction can be described in diverse ways. People believes that it is simply how an individual is satisfied with his or her job, in other words, whether or not they like the job or individual aspects of works, like nature of work or supervision.

A perfect job satisfaction always helps to make life satisfaction. Life satisfaction is an attitudinal variable that reflects how people fed about their jobs overall as well as various aspects of them. Life satisfaction can replicate experiences that have exaggerated a person in a positive way. These experiences have the ability to motivate people to pursue and reach their goals.

Employer's Happy in the Work Place

Correlations of Job stress and satisfaction

Job stress is highly correlated with satisfaction. This correlation is reciprocal meaning people who are satisfied with life tend to be pleased with their job and people who are satisfied with their job tend to be satisfied with life. When stress is high then satisfaction will be low. That means, stress and satisfaction is negatively correlated.

Impact of stress on job satisfaction

According to the early warning symptoms of job stress include:

1. Headache
2. Sleep disturbance
3. Difficulty concentrating
4. Bad temper
5. Little morale
6. Unfortunate relation with family and friend

Stress in job will reduce satisfaction. Whether there is less or no satisfaction, burnout will come. Burnout in the workplace could also be measured as a stress-related event which is often defined as a permutation of three components:

1. The environment
2. Negative thoughts and
3. Physical responses

A worker in high stress situations may demonstrate a number of symptoms like little self-esteem, feeling of being weighed down and incapacity to focus, fatigue and greater negative self-criticism, emission of imperfect judgments, emotional and illogical thought, ill-tempered and irregular behavior. This can remove coping potency.

Scenario in USA
 

Cause of Job Stress

According to the recent edition (2015) of The Conference Board Job Satisfaction survey and for the 8th straight year, less than 50 percent of US employees are satisfied with their jobs. In 2013, the percentage of employees satisfied with their current jobs was 47.7, well below the historical level of 61.1% in 1987. Increasing by a mere 0.4 percentage points from the last year, overall job satisfaction continues to progress from its minimal point (42.6% in 2010), though at a poorly slow pace. In addition to overall outcome, this report offers demographic results (such as age and region) for the investigation data. In American context, job satisfaction is very low now-a-days.

Remedy: How to cope up

Now this is the real demand of time to implement coping strategy for eradicating stress. Coping strategies refer to the particular efforts, both behavioral and psychological that people employ to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize stressful events. We don’t need to think about positive stress but have to adapt with negative one.

Unhealthy ways to cope

Some coping strategies that people usually are using may temporarily reduce stress, but they cause more damage in the long run.

1. Smoking
2. Drinking heavily
3. Spending long time in front of the TV or Computer
4. Withdrawing from society
5. Taking pills or drugs for relaxation
6. Sleeping too much
7. Filling up every minute of the day to keep away from facing problems

Healthy ways to cope

For the long run, these coping strategies should be the best.

Strategy 1: Get moving

1. Put on some music and dance around
2. Take your dog for a walk
3. Walk or cycle to the grocery store
4. Using the stairs at home or workplace rather than an elevator
5. Regular exercise

Strategy 2: Engage publicly

1. Building new friendships
2. Improving support and social network

Strategy 3: Avoid needless stress

It’s not a healthy matter to avoid a stressful situation always that needs to be addressed, but you may be astonished by the numbers of stressor in your life that you can eliminate.

1. Learning how to say “no”
2. Avoiding people who stress you out
3. Taking control of your environment

Strategy 4: Alter the situation

If you are unable to avoid a stressful circumstance, then try to alter it. Often, this involves changing the way you correspond and control in your daily life.

Strategy 5: Get used to the situation

1. Re-framing problems
2. Looking at the big picture
3. Adjusting your standards

     Strategy 6: Accept the things you can’t adjust

Many sources of stress are inescapable. You can’t stop or change stressors, such as the death of a dear one, a severe disease, or a national recession. In such cases, the best way to cope with stress is to accept things as they are. Approval may be difficult, but in the long run, it’s easier than railing against a situation you can’t change.

Strategy 7: Make time for entertaining and relaxation

Beyond a take-charge approach and a positive attitude, you can shrink stress in your life by nurturing yourself. If you regularly make time for fun and relaxation, you’ll be in a better place to handle life’s stressors.

Strategy 8: Adopt a healthy lifestyle

1. Eat a healthy diet
2. Reduce caffeine and sugar
3. Avoid alcohol, cigarettes and drugs
4. Get enough sleep 

Stress Free Situation

We all are dreaming a stress free world that let us enjoy our divine livelihood. So we all should learn how to cope with incoming stress. Enjoy!