Today when everything is so expensive, mostly in a middle class family it is mandatory for the husband and wife, both to work to ensure they can have a decent living, hence both come back home with some work stress for sure, unlike back then those days when only men worked and women would handle only the household. Certain issues that one faces at work and that can cause stress are:
- Demanding Bosses: Some bosses are extremely aggressive and expect one to work with them for all the hours (post or pre office) that the boss may want to spend physically at the work place; it is like an unsaid rule “boss hasn’t left for the day yet, how can you?” In some work places it is also noticed that the boss avoids delegating any work during the entire day, however maximum delegations happen when it is the end of the 9 official hours spent by the employee, this behavior is extremely stressful specially when one has certain schedule to follow after reaching home (concern for women & mothers).
- Diplomatic Colleagues: While ones immediate team at work is mostly fun to be with, there are always some colleagues who are extremely close to the boss or other team mates. At times these colleagues end up talking ill about their team mates, hence when one realizes about what one is being spoken about develops a feeling of insecurity and also feels scrutinized all the time, hence doesn’t befriend people at work, this leads to stressfully surrounding at work.
- Stringent Timelines: A boss feels that to get the maximum productivity from a person, it is good to give very short completion timeline, in case the employee cannot cope up with the timeline he / she will speak up and ask for an extension, however if he / she does complete it then one can be assured that the same task earlier was done lethargically. This only creates not required pressure and stress on their entire team.
- High Targets: In this competitive world, being cost effective is the key word, hence ones boss tries to achieve maximum productivity out of the minimal number of employees required and bosses to a large extent do not consider the humanitarian factor however only work on pure achieved numbers. It is good to have a goal however if it is unrealistic or delegated by leaders who themselves cannot guide the team on how to achieve it, seems like a lack of leadership quality primarily and secondly the feeling of work burden being pushed to the team without anyone really bothered about the stress level that one goes through at the lowest designation of the hierarchy pyramid.
- Demeaning Behavior: Some bosses think ones reporting to them are their slaves, hence they do talk to their employees in a very demeaning manner, at times using foul language as well. A person with self dignity will never succumb to this kind of behavior from anyone, hence with this loss of self respect one would rather resign than chose to work with such a boss.
- Time Management: This seems like only a term in books, cause with the amount of work one is loaded with is unbelievable, right from it being the daily checks to other delegated tasks with almost all on an ‘urgent’ timeline. It is impossible for an employee to leave work place in India on time, at the same time when these timelines are not met, ones appraisal is affected as well.
- Not Defined Key Role Areas (KRA’s): It happens so many times that one is appointed to justify a specific designation in a specific department however the bosses feel that they have every right to explore all that an employee is delegated irrespective of that task being a part of that employees domain or expertise. This does create pressure and stress to prove to ones boss specially when one doesn’t have the courage to say “boss, this doesn’t come under my profile or designation”
- Leave / Holiday / Weekend: On joining an organization, one is expected to spend the stipulated office hours at work as a mandate however today’s biggest fad is that one has to be reachable post office hours, on holidays, while on a vacation and over weekends as well, in case there is something urgent that comes up. So when one thinks of taking up a job especially at a mid management designation, one has to surrender their personal life and family time to their bosses. This does create a lot of stress even when physically one is off work.
It is high time that the Human Resource team become really strong and starts putting a penalty on such bosses or work ethics, as this is only creating a lot of stress on the employees who are working in such organizations. Each one who goes to work has their own personal reasons why they are not at home and instead at work, end of the day all people at leadership positions need to be considerate towards their team instead of being slave drivers. As an employee being subjected to these issues at work, one must learn to say a polite ‘no’ to your boss as and when needed. Kind and compatible bosses prove to be better leaders with better results.
