While on a peace mission, your workplace often plays a more important role than it does at home. The special work environment of a peace mission can have a negative effect on your well-being. Factors such as a high staff turnover rate, an ill-defined area of responsibility, or management that is overwhelmed, can all contribute to your stress levels. On the other hand, a lack of leisure activities and a limited social network – especially at the beginning – may also cause strain. Therefore, stress factors at work may prove to be more pervasive than at home. Workplace stress factors that may be present whilst on a mission abroad include the following: professional shifts and changes of tasks and roles, a hopeless environment and limited possibilities of changing it, impossible personal demands or overestimation of one’s own abilities.

Like in any other job, there can be workplace conflicts in the context of a mission. What is unusual here is the central role that your workplace plays in your life. On international missions there is often a merging of professional and private life, as  you often share your free time with the same people with whom you have spent the entire day at the office. Therefore, stress in the workplace may affect your well-being more significantly than would be the case at home.