Work blues are not so bad!

Turns out, workplace anxiety isn’t always a bad thing. According to a study conducted by the University of Toronto, researchers explored the aspects and workplace anxiety and uncovered some intriguing findings: in some instances, it was found that it can help boost employee performance.

“There are a lot of theories and models of anxiety that exist, but this is the first model situated in the workplace focusing on employees,” said co-author Julie McCarthy.

McCarthy, along with lead author Bonnie Hayden Cheng, looked at both the triggers of workplace anxiety and also its relationship to employee performance.

“If you have too much anxiety, and you’re completely consumed by it, then it’s going to derail your performance,” said McCarthy. “On the other hand, moderate levels of anxiety can facilitate and drive performance.” 

In certain situations, anxiety can boost performance by helping employees focus and self-regulate their behaviour. Cheng compared it to the athletes who are trained to harness anxiety in order to remain motivated and stay on task. She said that work-anxious employees who are motivated are more likely to harness anxiety in order to help them focus on their tasks.

Those who are emotionally intelligent can recognise their feelings of anxiety and use these to regulate their performance, as well as those who are experienced and skilled at their job, are also less likely to have anxiety affect their performance.

While the authors did not condone inducing anxiety in employees to foster high performance, the good news for employees who chronically experience anxiety at work, or who experience it from time to time, is that it can help performance if they can self-regulate their behaviour.

The study is published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.  — ANI 

Anxiety triggers

• Jobs that require constant expression or suppression of emotion
• Jobs with constant looming deadlines
• Frequent organisational change.
• Office politics
• Employee characteristics, including age, gender and job tenure.