Relationship Between Stress and Job Performance

Stress can be either helpful or harmful to job performance, depending upon its level. When stress is absent, it limits job challenges and performance becomes low. As stress increases gradually, job performance also tends to increase, because stress helps a person to gather and use resources to meet job requirements.

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Constructive stress inculcates encouragement among employees and helps them to tackle various job challenges. Eventually, a time comes when stress reaches its maximum saturation point that corresponds approximately to the employee's day to day performance capability. Beyond this point, stress shows no signs of improvement in job performance.

Finally, if stress is too high, it turns into a damaging force. Job performance begins to decline at the same point because excessive stress interferes with performance. An employee lose the ability to cope, fails to make a decision and displays inconsistent behaviour. If stress continues to increase even further it reaches a breaking point. At this breaking stage, an employee is very upset and mentally devastated. Soon he/she completely breaks down. Performance becomes zero, no longer feels like working for their employer, absenteeism increases, eventually resulting into quitting of a job or getting fired.

Stress should not be very high nor too low. It must be within the range and limits of employee's capacity to tolerate and his performance level. A controlled stress which is within limits is always beneficial and productive than an uncontrolled one.

Management of every organisation must always consider their employees as assets of their firm and not work slaves. Efforts should be made regularly to monitor and study stress levels in working environment. Necessary adjustments and arrangements should be made to control stress and its causes. Co-operation, Kindness, Respect, Good Manners and Discipline among members of an organisation always create a stress free, healthy, friendly and productive environment in a workplace.

Understanding emotional aspect of a human factor also plays a key role in determining the success prospect of an organisation. No matter how intelligent a work force is, it is emotions and not logic that drives them to give their best.