Factors Affecting Our Well-Being at Work
At the beginning of August, we launched a comprehensive survey focusing on a complex and sometimes difficult-to-define topic. The high participation rate and the detailed responses we received clearly demonstrate the relevance of the issue, while also highlighting areas where achieving positive change can be particularly challenging. One such area is the assessment and management of so-called psychosocial risks. But what exactly does this mean? According to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, psychosocial risks are “all workplace psychological, social and organizational factors that may negatively affect employees’ physical and mental health.”
Finding Balance in Every Area of Our Lives
The professional literature has been examining psychosocial risks and their underlying causes for decades. However, it often offers only broad and difficult-to-apply tools and methods for addressing them.
One example of a serious psychosocial risk was the situation faced by people with foreign-currency loans, when it became clear that one family member’s entire salary was barely enough not only to cover the family’s living expenses, but even to keep financially afloat. This created a constant source of stress in the lives of those affected. It takes little empathy to understand the psychosocial burden faced by people with foreign-currency loans or by anyone dealing with persistent financial or personal difficulties.
In a profit-oriented industrial environment, where quantified targets must be achieved under performance pressure – but above all, safely – psychosocial risks can become even more pronounced. In our daily work, it is natural that we all focus primarily on our own responsibilities and tasks. At the same time, we need to be aware of how our “ego” affects the people and environment around us.
Nor can our professional and private lives be completely separated. The same person who comes to work in the morning also plays a role in their family and other communities outside working hours. It is therefore important to find a healthy balance between work and private life, allowing us to remain authentic and balanced in all the roles we fulfil.
Unfortunately, we may sometimes see or experience situations where someone takes an overly dominant role at work while occupying a subordinate position in their private life – or the other way around. Neither situation reflects the picture of a truly balanced person who is comfortable with themselves.
What Can We Do About Stress?
Can we do something about the stress that builds up day after day, so that we do not eventually become overwhelmed by it or turn into “ticking time bombs” for the people around us?
The first step is to recognize that stress is the result of a range of factors over which we have either no control or only limited influence. We should start by identifying what causes stress for us personally, and then distinguish between the factors we can influence and those we cannot.
The latter can be removed from our list immediately – we need to let them go. These may include the past, for example, or the pressure to solve problems that fall outside our responsibilities or authority and for which we are not accountable. (How many people and colleagues do we know who are constantly concerned with other people’s affairs, always looking for someone else to blame, instead of putting their own area in order?)
We can then focus on the factors we can influence. It is worth considering how much we can realistically change, what tools are available to us and what kind of support we can draw on to address them.
We should also prioritize these factors according to the level of tension they create. An interesting realization may be that our biggest tasks are not necessarily our greatest sources of stress.
Once we have identified and prioritized these factors, it becomes easier to face them, take action and establish our own boundaries.
The Role of Communication
A person who has difficulty recognizing and managing their fears, shortcomings and the factors that trigger their stress may become aggressive. Aggression can take many forms. Open aggression is direct and obvious, making it relatively easy to recognize. Passive, hidden or indirect aggression, however, is much harder to identify and can therefore be far more toxic within a community.
In such situations, it is important to recognize the problem and make the person displaying the aggressive behaviour aware that their actions are creating tension, undermining the group’s performance and diverting significant energy away from our shared objectives.
Effective communication and transparency are among the most important pillars of managing workplace stress. We need to put problems on the table, discuss what led to a particular situation and jointly identify possible solutions.
This also requires us to rise above our own sense of grievance and individual interests, to reflect honestly on our own behaviour and, where necessary, acknowledge our own mistakes. If little attention has been paid to consciously managing workplace stress within a team so far, it is worth starting with the basics.
Our Environment Affects Us, Too
In addition to human and organizational factors, the physical working environment can also influence workplace stress – including factors such as temperature and lighting. This is one of the reasons why we would like to thank everyone for their cooperation in dealing with the situation created by the energy crisis.
During the ten-day period, we had to reduce the plant’s average daily energy consumption by 5%, and by 30% between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. Everyone could see that artificial lighting was switched off in several areas, cooling in the buildings was reduced, and the Maintenance Department systematically took high-energy-consuming mixers and calender machines out of production according to plan.
Thanks to these measures, we were able to meet the request made by the Government of Hungary.
Achieving this goal also required the cooperation of our colleagues, and we would therefore like to thank everyone for their patience, understanding and adaptability during this exceptional period.