Stress at Work Can Cause Personality Changes
With an increasing number of employed people being exposed to stress levels at work, concerns are being raised about how this will affect their quality of life and personality. Research into this area has suggested that extreme work pressures can have different effects on workers in different lines of work.
According to the research, a phenomenon called ‘executive derailment’ is being caused by increasing stress following the downturn in the economy. The study covered about 14,000 employees across the UK to come to the conclusion that with increasing stress, deep seated personality traits may come to light, causing ruptures within the hierarchical order in organisations.
The people assessment company Talent Q came up with a white paper recently. It showed that women turn more hypersensitive and dependent while men are more likely to turn over-confident under stressful conditions. Age does not seem to have a significant impact on this ‘derailment’, according to the study.
The effect of stress was also found to vary according to specific job roles. Administrative employees are likely to be hypertensive, while finance workers might micro-manage issues. Similarly, inherent traits may be exacerbated by the stress faced by employees. For example, production staff may increasingly prefer isolation, legal staff may become over dependant and sales personnel may tend to show off.
Talent Q Director Dr Alan Bourne remarked that inherent traits are exaggerated by the high-pressure work environment that is a consequence of tough times in the economy. However, issues such as these can be dealt with through proper training and personality development programmes.
For those involved in human resources management, training and development, CIPD courses are easily accessible and accredited training is provided by reputable companies such as Workplace Law; the Certificate in HR Practice imparts training to managers to successfully manage health and safety and improve upon management skills to help boost team performance for a more effective working practice.
