Improving Efficiency in Organizations by Monitoring Stress and Promoting Awareness and Wellbeing at the Workplace

Abstract

: Stress at the workplace has been associated with an increase in absenteeism and presenteeism in organisations, with a high impact regarding productivity and co-worker’s wellbeing at the workplace. The paper addresses such concerns by considering an approach that can act preventively by implementing a framework for early detection of stressing symptoms. The aim is to provide the organisation with a situational-awareness tool to keep the decision-maker well informed about any suspicious situation requiring the user attention, providing insights based on the co-worker wellness and specific needs, prompting in this way a healthy policy environment at the workplace. The research challenge addresses observing co-workers based on parameters associated with health indicators and understands how their physical and mental behaviour at the workplace can be affected by stress levels, including studying the impact derived from the conditions provided at the workplace environment. The paper presents an ongoing research work for early recognition of the identified risk factors, and to engage the workers in becoming proactive in their workplace. The primary goal of this model is to monitor the risk factors with impact on managing stress at the workplace. From a management viewpoint, the proposed model addresses the general theory of systems, as each variable in a system interacts with other variables so completely that cause and effect cannot be separated, as the workplace and the collaborators are linked together in order to maintain an equilibrium as is the best efficiency and efficacy at organizations. We expect to develop an integrated, systematic and dynamic model to support decision-makers (e.g., health supervisor) with the embedded knowledge required to choose the best possible intervention for the maximum benefit of the client (i.e., co-worker). The Boyd Cycle complements the decision-making process in order for health professionals to make more informed decisions in useful time. The Boyd Cycle assumes the existence of constant feedback and reorientation based on existing information and intuition, promoting the management of the workers and environment information, leading to adjustments in the workplace in real-time. The research will adopt the Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM) approach, where each informational artefact is generated to address the challenges identified for the target group. The study object for the proposed model is the health sciences with a focus on the nursing discipline and will be validated using interviews, panels of experts and later with the use of simulations.