Job stress and dealing with difficult people

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JOB STRESS AND DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

At the workplace, an employee must not only deal with the workload but also with the environment, particularly the people you work with. Here, several factors come into play and contribute at producing job stress. Difficult people  may include your colleagues, peers, managers, or your boss. You need to learn how to properly deal with them so you can prevent stress from having a devastating effect on your working experience.

Difficult People
Difficult people are not just confined to the workplace but in other aspects of everyday life that require you to work together. However, it is more pressing to address this issue at work since the company's productivity can be affected and you spend a large proportion of your day at work. If you are leading a group of employees, here are some strategies you can employ:

• Be tough. If you find that some of your colleagues or employees are not pulling their weight, you need to impose authority in order for them to realise the need to provide quality outputs. You can do this by setting standards and work boundaries for employees to live up to.
• Communicate assertively. Openly discuss with the people you are working with about each of your responsibilities to a given project or task. If possible, try to approach the matter objectively and free of any emotional leverage. Emphasise your aim to produce an efficient working relationship that results to higher productivity.

Unreasonable Demands

Most jobs entail their own set of demands. However, there are certain instances where unreasonable demands could arise. You need to learn how to identify one against the other in order to know which ones to attend to first. One way to do that is to analyse your job description and what type of work is expected of you by your company. If any demand outside of your work description arises, you need to know how to turn it down whilst  focusing on your job priorities.

This is not to say that you must refuse to attend to real emergencies in the workplace. However, this must not involve just one person but everyone who is concerned. You need to work together in coming up with an effective solution to any of these problems when they arise so you can reduce the level of stress produced by that given situation.

Teamwork

If you're serious about reducing job stress, then you need to come up with an efficient checklist system for your team design. This will enable you to raise awareness about issues or problem areas experienced by your team when working on a given project or task. One way to produce better teamwork is to encourage a feedback system. With this, you can remain focused on increasing performance and relieving team stress.

When coming up with your team design:

• The number of people in your team.
• Do you need to work together? Or, must you perform separate and individual tasks towards a common goal?
• Does it require technical skills?
• Does it require social skills?
• Does your team have all the resources it need?
• What is the time frame for working on the project?
• How effective is your feedback system?

Team Negotiation

Much of the job stress involved with working on a team project is rooted in your inability to resolve conflicts within the group. Therefore, having proper team negotiation skills will help you conquer the stress. Although neither an aggressive nor a passive approach will help your cause, you need to come up with a solution that is agreeable to both parties and one that will benefit the organization.

Different situations require different manners of negotiation. Therefore, you need to use this point to determine exactly what the source of conflict is. Is it lack of resources or lack of proper communication? Then, you can plan a solution accordingly. Once you have worked out possible solutions for the problem, then you will realize how it can significantly reduce the amount of job stress and you'd achieve a more productive working environment.