Stress Int He Workplace Due to Technology

Stress In The Workplace

How many times has e-mail gone down when you had to get a memo out immediately? "TECHNOLOGY designed to help people work efficiently is now forcing employees into a state of "digital depression" (Williamson, 2003). Rapidly changing technology has put greater amounts of stress on employees to constantly learn the new equipment that they need to know how to use to do their job, usually without formal training, this is referred to as "technostress."

Computer-related stress--technostress--has become a fact of life in the 1990's. Both staff and users must juggle multiple computer systems, make sense of complex interfaces, and absorb massive amounts of information. Managers face special challenges as they try to guide their organizations through accelerating technological change, while also creating a supportive environment for their employees. The consequences are not surprising: widespread health problems, psychological symptoms, and loss of productivity. (Kupersmith, 2001)

Computers

Although the data on benefits were not at all categorizable, the data on stresses added by technology produced clear categories as shown in the figure below. First, only 20% of the sample said that technology had brought no additional stresses to their lives. Second, clear major themes appeared in the answers centering around the additional work technology brings to the job (solving problems, learning, etc.). Clearly, the vast majority of our business people were telling us that workplace technology had added stress to their lives. This is corroborated by recent research on Communication Overload and Information Fatigue Syndrome. (Business.com)

As a result, shown by the table the number one way technology has made work more stressful is by the system problem errors. System problems occur frequently and when the system goes down, most employees cannot continue to do their job. The frustration or stress level rises dramatically.

Learning Curves

Steep learning curves are also an issue, just when an employee starts to feel comfortable with the new program they had just recently learned, a new program is installed leaving the employee to train on a newer system. Most employees feel that the old system is just as adequate as the new one or it was even better. With newer technology, certain programs that benefited the employee may no longer exist on the new program.

E-Mail

E-mail has put extra amounts of work on employees; just as they are sending out one e-mail another e-mail is popping up in their inbox, resulting in the employee spending extra time to reply to the massive amounts of e-mail.

Beepers, Cell Phones, Voice Mail

Long gone are the days of leaving the office and going home to spend time with the family. Technology has made the average employee accessible after-hours by providing them with beepers and cell phones. Stress levels rise drastically as an employee is getting interrupted by a beeper or cell phone during dinner or Little League game.

The days of speaking to someone in "real time" are also becoming non-existent. So many people are hiding behind voice mail so they do not have to speak to anyone. More and more people are getting frustrated when they get caught in "voice mail jail," no matter what number is pressed, a live voice never gets on the other end of the phone to help. As employees are getting stressed, companies are concerned with all the stress related absenteeism, and stress leave.

Ethical Issues

What are companies doing about the stress related issues? Companies are concerned about their employees and how they can alleviate stress. Many companies have built wellness centers and have started Employee Assistance Programs to help employees work through whatever may be stressing