Ethical Issues Inherent with Workplace Stress

Every individual needs to be treated with respect and dignity in order to grow mentally. On account of the challenging workplace arena today, a number of stress related ailments such as hearing impairment and dermatitis have set in. The social and spiritual growth of employees is most affected by ethical issues that move out of bounds and are difficult to manage and channelize. It is very natural for the work load allotted to each employee to weigh them down, becoming more demanding of time and energy.

Ethical issues like interaction between colleagues, information that may or may not be disclosed between departments, lunch time rules and regulations and reporting time due to certain predetermined reasons usher in scope for job stress and pressure. The absence of a remedial measure or consideration of the effect of ethical issues on the workplace environment leads to reduced output and dissatisfaction with work. Lowered efficiency and performance are the first signs of a stressful atmosphere.

Stress is not an illness or a disease that needs clinical application at the onset. It is a frame of mind that needs to be addressed with corrective and collaborative effort. However, stress is a trigger factor for a spate of illnesses. At the workplace, it is important to ensure that rules and regulations are made in conjunction with everyone's assent. Issues, ethical in nature, that are part and parcel of work and related activity should ideally be sorted concurrently. Workplace stress has an adverse effect on profitability and achievements of the company; hence, the sooner stress management is addressed, the better for everyone involved.

Ethical Issues Inherent with Workplace Stress:

There are a number of ethical issues inherent with workplace stress. Some of them include:

• Partial rules that apply to different departments.
• Preference of opinion of some employees over others.
• Unequal distribution of workload, without a plausible reason.

If ethical issues such as these and others are not sorted in time, they are potent stress triggers. And, stress ripples out, invading the whole community in some form or another. In the face of neglect, minor issues like varying reporting times and business protocols to be followed lead to serious physical and mental health related problems. Pressure of work is fine, but when it is compounded with ethical issues that penetrate the psyche, it culminates in poor employee performance. The onus is on both, employee and employer to address the consequences of ethical issues and map an efficiency fall-off.

The versatility of the workplace deteriorates in the wake of 'bad' thriving over 'good'. Workplace ethics are more about feeling positive about the choices imposed rather than following them out of compulsion. Ethical dilemma arises out of the complexity of what appeals as ethical and hurts as unethical. The organizations rules, code of conduct and defined guidelines of work should be synchronized to be routed as impartial and applicable to all. Unclear guidelines and bias only lead to employee performance deterioration which tells on the long and short term goal achievement of the company.

Workplace Stress:

Workplace stress ripples on in the form of loss of genuine and dedicated employees. Ethics management is subjective and cannot be imposed on the staff. A single stressed staff member is a loss for the company. While it is the duty of the management to rule out impartiality and bias, it is also the responsibility of the staff members to address ethical issues that they do not comply with, collectively. After all, each employee is unique and as part of a work-force community he or she is empowered to define applicable workplace ethics.

There are a number of workshops designed for ethics management that help cultivate:

• Better workplace communication and relationships.
• Increased turnover.
• Reduced instances of accidents.
• Long term employee management, teamwork and profitability.
• Positive public relations with clients, reflecting company health.
• Fair and just interactions via ethically agreeable practices.
• Application of common codes of conduct, without any discrepancy.