ethical issues inherent with workplace stress

Ethical Issues Inherent with Workplace Stress

Stress takes a toll on the physical, social, mental, and spiritual well-being of a person. At the workplace, wrong choices and a paradigm shift from the commonly accepted ethical values can cause a major setback to overall health. Ethical issues in debate at the workplace lead to stress and a drain of energy.

Every individual needs to be treated with respect and dignity in order to grow mentally. On account of the challenging workplace arena today, a number of stress-related ailments such as hearing impairment and dermatitis have set in. The social and spiritual growth of employees is most affected by such ethical issues that move out-of-bounds and are difficult to manage and channelize. It is very natural for the workload allotted to each employee to weigh them down, becoming more demanding of time and energy. Ethical issues like interaction between colleagues, information that may or may not be disclosed between departments, lunch-time rules and regulations, and reporting time due to certain predetermined reasons usher in scope for job stress and pressure. The absence of a remedial measure or consideration of the effect of issues related to ethics on the workplace environment leads to reduced output and dissatisfaction with work. Lowered efficiency and performance are the first signs of a stressful atmosphere. Stress is not an illness or a disease that needs clinical treatment at the onset. It is a frame of mind that needs to be addressed with corrective and collaborative effort. However, stress is a trigger factor for a spate of illnesses. At the workplace, it is important to ensure that rules and regulations are made in conjunction with everyone's assent. Issues ethical in nature, that are a part and parcel of work and related activity should ideally be sorted concurrently. As, stress at workplace has an adverse effect on profitability and achievements of the company; the sooner stress management is addressed, the better it is for everyone. Ethical Issues Related to Workplace Stress There are a number of issues concerned with workplace stress. Some of them include:
  • Partial rules that apply to different departments
  • Preference of opinion of some employees over others
  • Unequal distribution of workload, without a plausible reason
If issues such as these and others are not sorted in time, they may act as potent stress triggers. And, stress ripples out, invading the whole community in some form or another. In the face of neglect, minor issues like varying reporting times and business protocols to be followed lead to mental health problems. Pressure of work is fine, but when it is compounded with ethical issues that penetrate the psyche, it culminates in poor performance of the employee. The burden is on both, the employee and the employer to address the consequences of ethical issues and map an efficiency fall-off. Workplace ethics are more about feeling positive about the choices imposed, rather than following them out of compulsion. Ethical dilemma arises out of the complexity of what appeals as ethical and hurts as unethical. The organizations rules, code of conduct, and defined guidelines of work should be synchronized to be routed as impartial and applicable to all. Unclear guidelines and bias only leads to deterioration of the performance of the employee, which affects the long and short-term achievements of the company. Workplace Stress Stress at workplace ripples in the form of loss of genuine and dedicated employees. Also, ethics management is subjective and cannot be imposed on the staff. While it is the duty of the management to rule out impartiality and bias, it is also the responsibility of the staff members to address such issues that they do not comply with, collectively. After all, each employee is unique and as part of a workforce community he/she is empowered to define applicable workplace ethics. There are a number of workshops designed for ethics management that help cultivate:
  • Better workplace communication and relationships
  • Increased turnover
  • Reduced instances of accidents
  • Long-term employee management, teamwork, and profitability
  • Positive public relations with clients, reflecting company health
  • Fair and just interactions via ethically-agreeable practices
  • Application of common codes of conduct, without any discrepancy

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