Group Management of Stress-related Emotions in the Workplace

This book spotlights the communities of coping that develop in everyday routines at work like socialising, taking group breaks, telling stories and jokes, or drinking coffee and smoking together. Such practices help employees improve their well-being as they try to deal with the stress and emotions created by their demanding jobs. Effective solutions for how work groups can better manage work-related stress by building strong emotional cultures with a strong group mindset, trust, and connection are described. The research points to communication patterns that encourage co-workers to openly discuss work problems, painful experiences and therefore better deal with stress. These communal practices nourish the camaraderie that sustains them and ensures the work is done. What is also highlighted is the way individuals become both involved in the system of power at play in the organisation by expressing/suppressing their stress-caused feelings and entangled in the struggles against this system.