Human Response To Stress Essay

As human beings, when we encounter stress we go through a series of reactions which will decide how we will respond to stress. The first part of this series is an alarm reaction, which is also known as the “fight or flight” reaction, when our brains release adrenaline in to our various parts of our body. In response to this abundance of adrenaline, the body tries to balance itself out. One may continue to resist stress during this time by ignoring their stressors, which often times intensifies the symptoms. After days of resistance the body becomes exhausted and starts to break down, causing visible signs of stress to become noticeable (Kaminsky). This physiological human response is comparable to responses that employees encounter when they …show more content…
Business often employee either a cost strategy in which employees are view as a cog in the machine, or a differentiation system which values a quality product and therefore offers rewards to ensure that they are meeting their standards. With cost strategies employees can often resist, quit, and become highly stressed. This type of strategy aligns more with an autocratic stance where unions can be suppressed through harassment, termination, demotion, and plant closings (Budd, 2010). Suppression is a tactic that has been used by an estimated 57% of companies including: Target, Wal Mart and Ford (Shapiro, 2011). This type of strategy should be taken with caution, as psychological distress has been estimated to cost businesses $193 billion a year. That’s nearly one trillion dollars lost every 5 years. Also, it should be noted that once employees reach to point of sever psychological distress the effects often stick with them (Mulvey, 2010). Employers should gear their policies more towards a paternalistic approach, where employers limit the need of unions by treating their employees with respect and