In a very general sense, workload simply represents
the sheer volume of work required of an
employee. This definition, however, belies the
underlying complexity of this variable. That is,
workload can be measured in terms of number of
hours worked, level of production, or even the mental
demands of the work being performed.
The QWI is a
measure of perceived amount of work in terms of
pace and volume.
The pattern of relations with workload was
expected to be somewhat different from the other two
stressors. Both constraints and conflict are psychosocial
stressors to a great extent, arising in whole or part
from interactions among people. Workload, on the
other hand, concerns tasks more than people.
Furthermore, just having a large amount of work does
not necessarily lead to distress in the same way that
constraints or interpersonal conflict might. Many
individuals might enjoy work and might not find
having a lot to do unpleasant.
Therefore, we expected
smaller correlations of workload than the other two
job stressors with job strains.
However, we still expected workload to relate with
psychological job strains and have the strongest
relations with anxiety and frustration. The reasoning
behind this prediction was that a high workload is
likely to result in some level of uncertainty for the
employee (Beehr & Bhagat, 1985) about whether he
or she can get all of the work done. Such uncertainty
is likely to engender feelings of anxiety and worry.
With respect to frustration, it is also the case that high
levels of workload will result in some degree of goal
blocking. An employee may have so much to do that
he or she may be forced to neglect certain aspects of
the job or life, which would most likely be
experienced as frustrating. Finally, we expected some relations of workload with physical symptoms,
because of their link to emotional responses, as we
noted earlier.
Physical Symptoms