Occupational Health and Safety Lecture 5+ Chapter 7

Psychological healthy and safe workplace

A workplace that promotes employees' psychological well-being and actively prevents psychological harm.

- CSA-Z1003-13: A voluntary Canadian standard that guides organizations in protecting employees' psychological health.

Workplace Stress and Mental heath: psychosocial model of health

approach to the study of health that highlights the importance of both the social enviornment and psychological factors

Psychosocial model of health

Is a way of explaining how your mental health and social environment affect your overall health

Social factors: External influences on health, such as family circumstances, violence, and workplace policies.

Psychological factors: Internal influences on health, such as self-esteem, anxiety, and ability to cope with stress.

Stressors

Objectively verifiable event in the environment that has the potential to cause stress

Acute stressors

Specific time onset (you know exactly when it begain)

Short duraytion and high intensity

Low frequency (not happening continuously)

Chronic Stressors

No specific time onset

Short of long duration

Repeats frequently

Low or high intensity

Daily Stressor

Specific onset

Short duration

Low intensity

Infrequent

Ex: you get stuck in traffic, a coworker annoys you

Catastrophic Stressors

Specific onset

Occur infrequently

High intensity

Long or short duration

The distinction between acute and catastrophic relates to the intensity of the stressor

They can become cronic overtime

Stressors in the workplace

NIOSH model identifies major categories of workplace stressors

Workload and work pace, role stressors, career concerns, work scheduling, interpersonal relations, job content, and control

Stressors in the workplace: Roles Stressors

Role conflict: Happens when individuals face incompatible demands from two or more sources

Role ambiguity: When employees don't know what's accepted of them from a role

Interrole conflict: when employees face incompatible demands from 2 or more roles

13 organizational factors

Organizational culture, psychological and social support, clear leadership and expectations, civility and respect , psychological demands, growth and development, recognition and reward, involvement and influence, workload management, engagement, work-life balance, psychological protection, protection of physical safety

Stress

An individual’s internal response to, or evaluation of, stressors, often characterized by negative feelings of arousal

Reflect the psychological factors that affect someone’s health

General Adaptation syndrome

How we can deal with stressors in the workplace

The bodys way of gearing up for flight or flight

(i.e., to confront or run away from a predator)

Transactional Theory of Stress

Individuals may perceive and respond differently to the same stressors

Source: people access the stressor and there ability to manage it

Reaction: How the person interprets or evaluates the stressor and their ability to manage it

Response: The physical, psychological, or behavioural result of the stress

Stress Moderators

Moderator (factors) afefct people evaluations of stressors and how they react to them

Two variables stress and stressors. The moderator changes that relationship between the two variables

Moderator

Variables that change the relationship between other variables

Some aggravate or increase the effects of stressors

Others can protect individuals from adverse effects of stressors

Risk factor versus buffer

The Individual Personality

Relatively stable set of characteristics, responses, thoughts, and behaviours of a given individual

Type A behaviour: Action-emotion complex that can be observed in any person who is aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve increasingly more in increasingly less time

Negative Affectivity: A dispositional dimension reflecting persistent individual difference in negative emotion

May be a risk factor for stress

Psychological Strain

Refers to negative changes in mood (affect) or thinking (cognition) caused by stress

- Mood (affect): Irritability, anxiety, anger, feeling overwhelmed, or depression.

- Cognition: Difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly.

- Severity: Can range from short-term mood changes to serious psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety.

Mental Illness/ mental disorders

Presence of a psychological condition that affects individuals' functioning

Depression

Loss of interest or pleasure in activities

Symptoms: sleep problems, appetite loss, fatigue, irritability, concentration problems, negative attitudes about the self

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Excessive worry

Sympotms: distress, feeling on the edge, muscle tension, racing heart, insomnia, fatigue

Substance dependance

Occurs when continuous substance use despite significant damage; addiction

Substances: alcohol, amphetamines, nicotine, opioids, sedatives, etc

Symptoms: prolonged & high-dose substance use, inability to quit, failure to fulfil responsibilities, impaired relationships

Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Results from exposure to traumatic events

Characterized by 3 symptoms:

Re-experiencing the initial event, avoidance of specific situations, arousal

Many jurisdictions introduced presumptive WCB coverage for first-responder PTSD

Signs of struggle

Expession of distress: crying, sharing intentions to quit

Withdrawal: not engaging in work tasks

Extreme behaviours: neglecting personal hygiene

Attendance: absenteeism, tardiness

Performance: performing below standards

Physical Strain

May seem trivial, but evidence suggest that stress is implicated in more serious physical conditions

Coronary heath disease, high blood pressure, strokes, ulcers, asthma, some forms of cancer

Behavioural Strain

Refers to changes in a person's behaviour caused by stress.

- Nervous habits

- Avoiding certain situations

- Reduced involvement due to lack of interest or to reduce demands

Organizational Strain

Common organizational outcomes of stress:

Increased absenteeism, decreased performance, disturbances of interpersonal relationships at work, increased likelihood of looking for alternative employment

Recognizing, Assessing and Managing Psycosocial Hazards

Organizations can identify psychosocial hazards by:

- Identifying workplace stressors.

- Surveying employees about stress.

- Looking for warning signs of stress.

- Monitoring individual employees for changes in behaviour.

Primary interventions: prevention

Aims to prevent stress by reducing or removing the stressor itself, before it causes harm.

Three main methods:

- Avoiding stress: Eliminate the source of stress.

- Reducing exposure: Limit how often workers face the stressor.

- Controlling the stressor: Change workplace conditions to make them less stressful.

Secondary interventions: coping

Help employees manage stress after it has begun, reducing its negative effects before it leads to strain.

Three main methods:

- Coping: Managing stress through healthy strategies.

- Reducing damage: Limiting the negative effects of stress.

- Changing perspective: Changing how a person views or reacts to a stressor.

Teritary interventions: healing

Focus on helping employees recover after stress has already caused harm (strain).

- Goal: Reduce the effects of strain and support recovery.

- Examples: Counselling, therapy, or rehabilitation.

Key concept: Tertiary interventions address the strain (outcome) rather than preventing the stressor or managing the initial stress response.

Stressor: Injustice at Work

Organizational justice refers to workplace fairness, which has three dimensions:

- Distributive justice: Fairness of outcomes.

- Procedural justice: Fairness of decision-making processes.

- Interactional justice: Fairness of how employees are treated.

Stressor: technology

Technology can negatively affect workers' psychological and physical well-being.

Five major technology-related stressors:

- Malfunctions: Technology failures cause frustration and stress.

- Isolation: Reduced social interaction.

- Privacy: Increased employee monitoring.

- Increased job demands: Higher workloads and work pace.

- Continuous learning: Pressure to constantly learn new technology.

Working for Workers Act

On Nov 30,2021 ontario passed new laws tat help emplotees disconnect from work and enjoy better work-life balance

Employers with 25 or more employees are required t have a written policy about employees right regarding disconnecting from their job at the end of the day

Stressor: Work-Family Conflict

A type of inter-role conflict that occurs when work and family responsibilities interfere with each other

Stressor: Work-family conflict

Work-to-family conflict: in which work demands interfere with the fulfillment of family responsibilities

Family-to-work conflict—in which family demands interfere with the fulfillment of work responsibilities

Causes

Behavioural involvement: the amount of time a person spends in a particular role

Psychological involvement: the degree to which a person identifies with a particular role and sees the role as a central component of his or her self-concept

Psychological strain

Burnout has three dimensions:

Emotional exhaustion; feeling emotionally drained

Cynicism; negative feelings about work

Inefficacy; feeling ineffective or unproductive