Ilm Managing Stress and Conflict in the Organisation
Assignment 2
Managing Stress and Conflict in the Organisation
Task 1
Understand the effectiveness of own organisation in dealing with workplace stress and conflict
Stress is a part of everyday life and as such is a part of all organisations. Cole in his 2004 book ‘Management Theory and Practice’ describes stress as:
The adverse psychological and physical reactions that occurs in individuals as a result of their being unable to cope with the demands being made of them. (p.382)
It is estimated that stress causes the UK economy around £7 billion a year, of which £4 billion is as a result of the 180 million working days lost due to staff taking time off work. As such the importance, if not purely on a financial basis, can be seen to all organisations.
The importance to XXXX College, can also be seen by the fact that over the last six months, the College has employed the services of two external consultants to investigate work related sickness patterns and implement a new policy to minimise the occurrences of work related sickness.
Thomson in her book ‘Managing People’ published in 2002 says that as with stress, conflict is also an inevitable part of organisational life. However, as with stress, this is generally seen as undesirable, dysfunctional and a negative thing, but given the right circumstances and handling, both can be beneficial to an organisation.
The College as a whole has various mechanisms for dealing with workplace stress and conflict. In terms of workplace stress, identification of a potential employee’s ability to put in place personal coping strategies is made during the recruitment process. Part of the College’s standard Personal Specification is around outside hobbies and interests and one of the suggested questions from HR is about the acknowledgement that teaching and education is a high stress environment and what strategies does the interviewee have for dealing with this. All recruited staff then under-go a formalised induction
Managing Stress and Conflict in the Organisation
Task 1
Understand the effectiveness of own organisation in dealing with workplace stress and conflict
Stress is a part of everyday life and as such is a part of all organisations. Cole in his 2004 book ‘Management Theory and Practice’ describes stress as:
The adverse psychological and physical reactions that occurs in individuals as a result of their being unable to cope with the demands being made of them. (p.382)
It is estimated that stress causes the UK economy around £7 billion a year, of which £4 billion is as a result of the 180 million working days lost due to staff taking time off work. As such the importance, if not purely on a financial basis, can be seen to all organisations.
The importance to XXXX College, can also be seen by the fact that over the last six months, the College has employed the services of two external consultants to investigate work related sickness patterns and implement a new policy to minimise the occurrences of work related sickness.
Thomson in her book ‘Managing People’ published in 2002 says that as with stress, conflict is also an inevitable part of organisational life. However, as with stress, this is generally seen as undesirable, dysfunctional and a negative thing, but given the right circumstances and handling, both can be beneficial to an organisation.
The College as a whole has various mechanisms for dealing with workplace stress and conflict. In terms of workplace stress, identification of a potential employee’s ability to put in place personal coping strategies is made during the recruitment process. Part of the College’s standard Personal Specification is around outside hobbies and interests and one of the suggested questions from HR is about the acknowledgement that teaching and education is a high stress environment and what strategies does the interviewee have for dealing with this. All recruited staff then under-go a formalised induction