The Impact of Stress on Work Teams

The Impact of Stress on Work Teams

Table 1: Sources

Fernandez, R. (2016). Help Your Team Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/01/help-your-team-manage-stress-anxiety-and-burnout Kravitz, D. A. (2006). Diversity in Teams: A Two-Edged Sword Requires Careful Handling. Wilkie, D. (2020). What Managers Can Do to Ease Workplace Stress? Retrieved from SHRM: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/how-managers-can-help-stressed-workers-.aspx

Table 2: Relief Tips

Sources	Relief Tips
Fernandez, R. (2016). Help Your Team Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/01/help-your-team-manage-stress-anxiety-and-burnout	·         Focus on the development and growth of employees ·         Allow employees time to rejuvenate their brains ·         Be compassionate and empathetic ·         Encourage monotasking and taking breaks
Kravitz, D. A. (2006). Diversity in Teams: A Two-Edged Sword Requires Careful Handling.	·         Create a culture of learning ·         Listen to all opinions of team members ·         Utilize diversity and homogeneity for different tasks
Wilkie, D. (2020). What Managers Can Do to Ease Workplace Stress? Retrieved from SHRM: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/how-managers-can-help-stressed-workers-.aspx	·         Set realistic goals/expectations ·         Equip team members with skills and knowledge ·         Encourage employees to take breaks, do physical exercise, and other hobbies

Work-related stress on teams is becoming more common, especially during the transition from working from home to the office. In fact, stress is gaining value and tends to depict an individual as busier and more productive. However, the impact of stress in a team setting is greater than imagined. Employees’ well-being deteriorates, their productivity is lower due to multitasking, they lose touch with their social circles and family members, and they perform poorly (Kravitz, 2006). These effects tend to worsen if the stress continues for long enough.

The need to alleviate such stress is urgent, especially if organizations maintain productive work teams. First, it is important to ensure that employees receive tasks that they can efficiently conduct. Unrealistic expectations that arise from difficult tasks, which exceed the employees’ abilities and skills, tend to experience intense stress because they cannot deliver the expected results (Fernandez, 2016). They also lack support from their peers because they are equally unskilled.

Secondly, the lack of breaks and free time to engage in social and non-work activities demoralizes and burns out team members. As employees keep working from home, their productivity is stifled due to burnout (Wilkie, 2020). They become irritable and are easily triggered, leading to tension in the team. Multitasking also plays a role in diminishing an employee’s ability to perform optimally. Thirdly, employees tend to be overwhelmed by deadlines. This affects their ability to prioritize, leading to a lack of breaks (Fernandez, 2016).

These issues highlight areas that leaders and managers need to address to reduce stress in work teams. Such actions include encouraging employees to take breaks and carry out single tasks, training all team members, relaxing deadlines to encourage proper prioritization, being compassionate and empathetic, and setting realistic goals. Managers also need to utilize diversity for new tasks/projects and homogeneous groups for common tasks. Paying attention to the growth and development of team members is also critical for reducing stress in work teams (Fernandez, 2016).

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Overview
Few trends have influenced how work gets done in organizations as much as the use of work teams. The shift from working alone to working on teams requires employees to cooperate with others, share information, confront differences, and sublimate personal interests for the greater good of the team. Managers can build effective teams by understanding what influences performance and satisfaction.

In today’s business environment, diversity among team members adds another dimension. In interdepartmental, global, or cross-functional teams, differences may come from differing viewpoints about business processes. Many differences arise from utilizing different processes used to reach the same outcome.

Instructions
For this assignment, focus on the ways in which diversity in team composition can affect the stress in team environments. In addition to your unit readings, identify two additional sources from the Internet and one additional source from the Capella library that address the management of stress in work teams. Your goal is to find resources that give tips on resolving stress in the team, either internally or with the assistance of a manager. See the Resources for tools to help you with this process.

Submit your 3 sources in the format of a table showing the complete and correct APA format.
Submit a second table suggesting 2 stress relief tips from each article.
Conclude with a page (at least one paragraph, 5–8 sentences) summarizing what you see as the most important challenges to be addressed in managing diverse teams and team stress.