Office Stress

Office stress is a very common occurrence. Office stress comes about because of the pressures of the job, which is often not so simple to define, especially in a small firm. In a large office, jobs are quite clearly defined and everyone knows what they are responsible for. In a small office though, the few members of staff often have to cover a dozen or so different jobs and so office stress can build up. Office stress can build up rapidly if the boss is unsympathetic or a member of a small office team goes off pregnant or sick whether a temporary replacement is found or not.

Office Stress

Office stress is a very real phenomenon especially in a small business. For example, it is not uncommon for a firm with $1 annual turnover to be run by a staff of two - the office manager and a secretary. This means that the office manager has to be able to do every job and it is hoped that the secretary will be able to do most of them too. This creates office stress.

The secretary-cum-assistant will need to understand filing, typing, word-processing, data entry for book-keeping software, how to read job sheets, time sheets and invoices. The secretary will also have to welcome visitors, but keep sales people out, while remaining polite.

The secretary will also need to have a good phone manner and be able to answer enough questions to be able to shield the manager from time wasters and handle serious questions if the manager is not in. These jobs are hard enough on their own, but office stress builds up when you find yourself trying to three jobs at once and that is not uncommon.

You could be entering time sheet data while the manager has gone to visit site, when the phone rings with an enquiry and a potential client comes in looking for a quote. This is enough to make office stress soar.

The manager will also have to be able to carry out these tasks, but the office manager will also be responsible for management accounts, pay, job costing, pricing, writing letters and keeping up with the law as the likely Company Secretary, which means he/she will need to know enough about employment law to advise the directors.

This leads to tremendous office stress. Besides all this, the office manager is usually responsible for paying and collecting taxes and keeping up with regulations and employment law. In these days of litigation and government claw backs, mistakes in any legal field are punished with expensive fines of compensation claims. This level of responsibility also only increases the levels of office stress.

The problem is that office stress, like most forms of stress, leads to tension and irritability and irritability can lead to a short fuse and flashes of temper, which only go to worsen the situation and raise the level of office stress another notch.

The levels of office stress soar to another level if an importants piece of office equipment breaks down, because it is always just when you need it. Because it can take hours or even days to get it repaired, you are expected to be able to carry out minor repairs yourself. And then if the boss is an unsympathetic or just unlikeable then the level of office stress can become even worse.