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IELTS Writing Task 2/ IELTS Essay:

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Nowadays many jobs are more stressful and the working day is longer. What are the reasons for this? What can employers do to help employees?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

You should write at least 250 words.

Model Answer 1:
The ever increasing job competition, the pressure of constant deadlines, the technological dependency in jobs and people’s expectation to thrive in the workplace have changed the definition of professional life and most of the employees require to work harder and for long hours each day. In this essay, I will examine the reasons behind this work pressure and lengthy working hours and suggest some ways that the employers can help improve the condition.

High competition in the job market is one of the reasons why jobs have become such stressful these days. Employers always have options for finding new employees and replace someone and this is why someone who has already been hired has to work hard to save his job. This naturally has negative psychological effects on employees. Employees have to work for longer hours to meet their performance target as the invisible threat of firing is there. Increasing competition caused by globalisation is another reason to make the workplace such stressful. Many small and medium business entities need to compete with other multinational companies and companies in developing nations where labour price is cheaper. The effect of this on employees is that they know they may be made redundant if the business they work for fails. This force the employees not only to work longer hours but also suffer from work-related stress and uncertainty. In most of the organisations, the employers these days set targets for the employees and most of the targets are hard to achieve. As a result, employees are forced to work beyond 10 hours per day and even on days-off. Finally, people’s expectation from the offices have reached to a higher position and people are ready to sacrifice their personal life for the sake of promotions. This shift of mind setup has also attributed to the increasing work pressure.

Despite the higher competition in business, employers should ensure a healthy working environment and support their workers morally and financially in order to sustain in the long run. An organisation cannot survive without experiences and dedicated employees and constant fear of uncertainty cannot ensure a healthy workplace. Employers should encourage employees to work the regular hours and work overtime only when it is absolutely necessary. The employers should also encourage people who perform better and award them for their performance. The workers should be allowed to take breaks and should not suffer from anxiety of losing jobs. Finally, the employers should have a friendly relationship with the workers and have meetings to listen to their problem. If the employer can assure the employees that they are ready to help each other and their jobs are secured, they can then expect better outputs from the employees.

In conclusion, higher competition in the job market, globalisation and people’s aim to reach higher are the main reasons for stress in the workplace and the employers have a lot to contribute to improving this situation. A healthy workplace is very crucial for the best performance by the employees.

Sample Answer 2:
It is a fact that working hours are getting longer and the work pressure is getting more intense these days. There are various reasons that have caused the situation and there are some things that employers can do to help their staffs. The following essay will discuss them in details.

For a number of reasons, people’s working hours are getting longer and jobs are getting more stressful nowadays. Firstly, it is due to the tight competition in the labour market. As the supply of labour is higher than the demand, it means that there are more people who are looking for jobs and employers could be selective in hiring their potential employees. As a result, employers would select labours who are multiple talents, could work for long hours and could handle many tasks. Secondly, as business competition become tougher these days, companies are working in a more effective and efficient manners. Consequently, there will be less manpower in many companies, which means they only recruit selected people who can do many things at once and could work long hours.

There are several things that employers could do to solve the problem. It is believed that exercises could reduce stress level, therefore many companies are providing fitness centre in their office these days. This facility can be used by their employees outside of the working hours for free and it is hoped that employees could maintain their health condition. And then, employers could also hire unpaid internship to assist their employees.  It is expected that with the assistance of internships, it would reduce the workload and working hours of employees.

To sum up, it is a fact that works are more stressful and take longer hours these days. To solve the issue, there are some things that employers could do, and one of them is providing gym facilities to employees for reducing their stress level.  Another thing is that employers could also recruit unpaid internship to assist employees as it would reduce the long working hours.

[ Written by - Darwin Lesmana ]

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