TCC GROUP 'ONSITE SAFE'

TCC GROUP 'ONSITE SAFE'
Boredom and stress at work

One of the many overlooked areas in the cause of workplace injury is the impact of boredom and stress.What are we talking about when referring to boredom?

"The noun boredom has one meaning:

Meaning #1: the feeling of being bored by something tedious
Synonyms: ennui, tedium "

http://www.answers.com/topic/boredom


What is the link between boredom and stress?
Often the links between these two controversial areas are not explicit nor always reflected upon in their impacts in the workplace.This may include the psychological and physical impacts of fatigue symptoms http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Fatigue_explained?Open that can result as impacts of the various types of stress that workers/employees can suffer .

What types of stress and causes are there;
Often these can be characterized as emotional /psychological responses to being or feeling like one does not have the resources to cope with a high productivity rate or production load or understimulated by extremely boring or repetitive work organization and procedures.Both types of demands create various types of responses in various individuals and importantly in teams.

Factors in the way that we organize and manage our workplaces can also have important and destructive impacts which may reveal themselves in other less obvious workplace injuries or incidents/sicknesses.

“ If workplace stress and causal factors are recognised, it may be dealt with effectively. Stress is a wokplace hazard that should be identified, assessed and controlled in the same manner as other work hazards.
Contributing factors
• Absence of autonomy. A worker may not have control over the demands of work.
• Poor physical work environment may also contribute towards stress. Negative factors include cramped, hot or noisy working conditions.
• Workload factors. Workers can be understimulated with too little challenge or overwhelmed with unrelentingly high workloads.
• Repetitive or meaningless tasks. Lack of stimulation or challenge can lead to boredom, demotivation and lack of interest.
• Role ambiguity. An absence of clarity regarding expectations about a worker's duties.
• Work conflict. A major cause of stress at work is unmediated conflict between a worker and their supervisor or colleague(s).
• Occupational mismatch. There may not be sufficient fit between a worker and their organisation. This may be in terms of communication, rewards/ recognition or management style.
• Taking work home regularly can create conflict with family members and blur the work-home boundaries.
• Job satisfaction, security and career prospects may not meet the expectations of some workers.”

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/hr/ohs/occstress/stressaware.html

What can be done in the workplace?
In the short term I suppose it would be to actually acknowledge and identify whether yourself and workmates are under undue stress and what some of the impacts are .

Perhaps discussions can take place at the the ‘toolbox’ meetings and with management in regard to certain situations to help improve particular productivity based concerns.in addition perhaps a stress audit could be confidentially conducted
http://www.healthoz.com.au/docs/factsheets/Workplace_stress.pdf
to help identify some issues and possible implementable solutions.

I think that this area has a lot of importance and needs greater attention as issues identified such as fatigue are linked to this mix of factors.In addition the increasing impacts of depression demand investigation as to how workplace organization contributes to this malaise and hazard to health and wellbeing of employees and management alike.

Further information is available at;

http://www.safetyline.wa.gov.au/PageBin/disegenl0008.pdf
http://www.workershealth.com.au/facts018.html
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Fatigue_explained?Open