ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING OCCUPATIONAL STRESS IN PUBLIC SECTORS
INDUSTRIES
Alka Shrivastava
Research Scholar, UIMC, RDVV, Jabalpur, (India)
ABSTRACT
In current work environment, occupational stress is experienced everywhere in all types of organizations.
Globalization, technological advancement and complex nature of work have brought new challenges as well as new stressors to employees. Indian economy and job demands areexperiencing noticeable transitions. In response to these fastchanges, employees of both private and public sectors are facing increasing work stress in India.Therefore, there is theneed of innovative HR strategies and practices for stress management in improving effectiveness and competence of both individuals and organizations.
The present theoretical paper discusses the various emerging issues in Indian industrial public sector organizationsregarding occupational stressand required management strategies to handle them. Based on secondary information available, this paper concludes that stress management should be taken as a primary strategic and operational concern for all organizations because of the direct relationship between good employment practices and successful outcomes.
Keywords: HRM, Occupational Stress, Stress Management, Stressor, Workplace.
I. INTRODUCTION
Human resource is considered as one of the most valuable resource. Most of the organizations invest a huge amount of money and spend a great deal of time and efforts to properly utilize and manage this vital resource.
Stress is one of the burning questions that hinder the workers’ and organizational performance and productivity.
Occupational stress is observed everywhere on both employees and employers. Stress can be defined in general term as people feel pressures in their own life.Stress is the response of people to the unreasonable/excessive pressure or demands placed on them. Stress is an outcome of mismatch between the individual capabilities and organizational demands and the mismatch between the expectations of both individual and organisation. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) declares that stress can worsen when there are high demands placed on a worker in a particular job, but the worker has little control over those demands.
A survey done by Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM, 2007) reported that work related stress and mental fatigue is affecting the Indian employees. Stress not only affects the physical, psychological and financial balances of an employee but also affects the organizations directly or indirectly.
Desired results cannot be expected from the workers who are stressed because they lose their energy, accuracy, concentration and creativity. There are many causes of stress and their consequences on organization’s
productivity and efficiency as workers may remain absent more working days. As Pestonjee D.M. [1] indicated that lack of stable, clear and formal code of job expectations, conflicting and frequently changing polices, numerous and more unclear objectives lead to higher stress.
With the beginning of economic planning in 1951, the development and growth of public sector units (PSUs) has been remarkable.The industrial policy resolution of 1956 gave the public sector a strategic role in the economic growth in India and huge investments have been made to develop these public sectors.
India is a very big country of great variety and its social and cultural diversity creates more challenges at work place. At the same time, the government imposes many complex rules and regulations and lengthy procedure of their compliance. Managing and balancing those differences and issues generates new types of stressors among workers and organizations. Due to global challenges, changes are also taking place in the work environment of PSUs. In such a dynamic environment, it becomes the responsibility of the employer and the employees to identify the root causes of stress at the workplace and make efforts to reduce them for the effectiveness and efficiency of the individual and the organization itself.
The present paper highlights the broad outline of causes of occupational stress at individual employee’s level and their consequencesat organizational level in industrial public sectors in India. The paper suggests some important strategic planning needed to combat the alarming situation of stress in present Indian context.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
It has been widely reported that work stress adversely affect individuals’ psychological and physical health, as well as organizations’ effectiveness and productivity.
Ahmad, Bharadwaj, and Narula [2] compared role stress level among 30 executives of the public and private sector. They used an ORS scale to measure ten dimensions of role stress. Significant differences were found only in three dimensions of role stress; role isolation, role ambiguity and self-role distance. The study also reveals that public sector executives experienced higher stress than private sector executives. Background factors, such as age, level of education, income, marital status, and work experience were found to be insignificant.
Madhuet al. [3] conducted a study on role stressin steel and petroleum organizations. The study attempted to compare the influence of the originator factors namely, personal, organizational, job, superior, leadership styles and communication factors on role conflict and role ambiguity. It was found that role conflict and role ambiguity experienced by the employees were most significant in the petroleum organization. The interpersonal relation found significant among the employees in the steel industry.
Satyanarayana [4] investigated stressors among 75 executive and 75 supervisors of BHEL in Ramchadrapuram and revealed that role erosion, personal inadequacy, resource inadequacy and role stagnation were experienced as dominate contributors of role stress in executives and supervisors. The two groups differed significantly in respect of role overload and role ambiguity dimensions.
Pattnayak and Mishra [5]compared work organisations in new and old public sectors in relation to Organizational Role Stress(ORS) and quality of work life as an index of organisational effectiveness. The sample consists of 800 employees of two industrial organisations. In each organisation, half of the respondents (n=200) were selected from production department and other half from service departments. Further half of the
production employees were executives and half non-executives. Findings of the result shows significant differences were observed between old and new organisation on all 10 dimensions of ORS and total role stress.
In another study, they conducted a research to make comparative assessment of shift and non-shift employees in relation to job satisfaction, job stress, perceived organisational commitment and HRD climate among employees of Rourkela Steel Plant, Orissa.Result of the study shows executives were more job satisfied than supervisors.
No significant differences were observed between shift and non-shift employees on job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Shift employees perceived better HRD climate than non-shift employees.
Zaferand Nageshwara [6] studied the effect of organizational role stress on job involvement of managers in public sector organizations. The sample consisted of 130 managers from junior, middle and senior level.
Outcomes of the study indicated that all three levels of managers were negatively influenced by Role stagnation, Role overload and Role isolation. Overall Personal inadequacy, Role stagnation, Role overload and Role isolation were the sources of disturbance to junior and middle level managers.
Bhatia and Kumar [7] studied occupational stress and burn out in industrial employees. The sample consisted of 100 employees belonging to supervisors and below supervisor level. Employees at supervisor rank and below supervisor rank belonging to higher age group experienced more occupational stress due to more responsibility and accountability.
Pathardikar and Mishra [8] studied the level, reasons, significance and difference in stress and the relationship between various occupational stress variables and demographic variable among the executives in PSU’s. This study was focused on manufacturing Public sector undertakings of India. The sample consists of 104 respondents. Both technical and non-technical s Executives from different departments are included in the study. Finding indicates that executives of various PSUs experiences low level of stress and suggested that PSU’s should conduct continuous training and development programs for stress management.
Lakshminarayanan [9] has presented a comprehensive overview on strategic planning to combat occupational stress in the present Indian context based on literature survey and investigated the stress levels in private and public sectors and presented their comparative analysis.
Sundar andEzhilan [10] examined the sources of occupational stress in Indian context, the effects of stress and techniques of managing stress. The paper recommended the various strategies for employees and the management to help the employees’ combat stress effectively. They concluded that the organizations should be proactive in addressing the stressful situation and any effort put in by any organization in managing the issue of work place stress can have a dramatic impact on bottom line.
Christiana and Mahalakshmi [11] conducted a comparative study on role stress and its Impact on public and private employees of managerial cadre in Chennai. The influence of role stress between the public and private sector is found to be more or less the same among the managers belonging to both public and private sector as per the study. However, this paper did not include the management strategies towards occupational stress.
Pattnaik and Mishra [12]explored the effects of work stress in Indian context. They collected data from the employees of seven different sectors like; Banking, Manufacturing, Teaching, Outsourcing, Health & Medical, Software and Construction. The study consists of employees’ perception towards stress, and to suggest measures to both management and employees to deal with stress. The finding of the paper reveals that more or less stress is being experienced by the individuals at workplace. Excessive workload and organisational conflict are the
major causes of workplace stress. The papers also suggested some measures to both management and employees to deal with stress.
Pandey[13]conducted a study to determine the relationship between personal demographics and organizational role stress. The study was conducted on 61 personnel of Indian railways aged between 28-58 years. The analysis showed a positive but non significant relationship of age and education with all dimensions of role stress.
Experience was positively and significantly correlated all dimensions of role stresses except role overload, resource inadequacy and role isolation.
III. CAUSES OF STRESS IN INDIAN ORGANIZATIONS
Employees spend around one third of their lives at workplace, if stressors are present at work place, they suffers from emotional, behavioral, mental and physical disorders.There are many causes of work stress which are discussed in available literature. Some of them in Indian context are described in (Sundarand Ezhilan [10], Pattnaik and Mishra [12], Mahmood and Bisaria [14], Uma Devi .T [15], Samartha et al. [16], Sathyanarayana and Maran [17]).Based on available literature, observations and in consultation with employees in Indian organizations, the causes of stress withtheir sub factors are summarized below:
3.1Organisational System
The organizational factors play a big role in occupational stress as it directly affects the working environment.
The factors under this stressor are identified as: Lack of management support;Improper infra-structure;
Insufficient number of employees for performing tasks; Culture dominance;Inadequate tools or machines;and Inappropriate planning at work.
3.2 Nature of Job
The nature of job itself is found to be a factor of stress. It includes factors such as more job demands; Repetitive or redundant work; Job rigidity; Multi tasking of work; Shifts and Scheduling; and Less control over job.
3.3Role in Organisation
Various roles assigned to employees in various organizations also leads to work stress. In literature the factors related to role stressors are: Role conflict and ambiguity; Changes in Role; Role overlapping;Role stagnation;
Role erosion; Inadequacy of Role Authority; Role isolation and Self-role distance.Work stress is developed more often, when an employee is given a key responsibility without proper authority and delegation of power.
3.4 Lack of Career Development
Some of employees are feeling stress because of not having proper personal and professional development. The factors are:Insufficient time to update the knowledge; Rare promotions possibilities; Reduced packages;Improper Performance standards and feedback system;Insufficient Training and development.
3.5Professional Relationship
There should be sound inter-personal relationship in working environment otherwise the require outcomes will not be achieved. The factors responsible are: Lack of appreciation; Lack of communication between different management levels;Poor support from colleagues; Conflict between different management levels; Strain
relations with colleagues.Negative interpersonal relations and workplace interpersonal conflicts are prevalent sources of stress and are existed with symptoms of ill health and negative mood depressions. Lack of effective consultation, lack of participation in the decision making process and communication, unjustified restrictions on behaviour, no sense of belonging and office politics are identified as potential sources of stressors.
3.6 Work Load
Work load is a strong source of stress at work, having too much work load to complete under time pressure in order to meet deadlines/targets naturally creates stress.The factors related to work load are: Too much work (Overwork)is one of the major cause of stress but at the same time too little work (Underwork) also leads boredom and hence stress; Sometimes, a lot of overtime also leads to stress.
3.7 Occupational Frustrations
The frustration at work is a cause of job burnout. The important components of occupational frustration are following: Job insecurity; High degree of expertise needed;Occupational Changes;Stress of Accountability;Performance pressure;and Lack of competency.
3.8 Increasing use of technology
In recent literature, a new stressor has been found. This stressor is due to heavy use of technology at work. The main causes are: Overuse and misuse of Mobile phones; More e-mail and telephonic communications; Problem in Internet and Computer technology usage.
3.9Changing Society and Culture
The social interaction and country culture also play a big role in stress. This includes, Increasing urbanization, ageing populations, Feeling of Inequality, Changing gender roles and Women competing the men.
3.10 Work-life Balance
Work-life balance is one of the burning issues these days. Employees are unable to manage it. The main reasons are: Family responsibilities, Work demand in domestic time and not having enough time for family due to job demand.
IV. ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES TO MANAGE STRESS
The physiological, psychological and behavioural are important to the understanding of job stress and coping strategies in contemporary organization. Stress cannot be eliminated from daily life; the only solution is to manage it effectively.
Organizational stress management is regarded as a new dimension of Human resource management. As stress affects all at some time,the HRM department should have its focus on measuring and taking steps to manage stress. Therefore, planning for strategies and implementing them is a big challenge for management. Based on the existing literature, the following are the key points an organization can take:
4.1 Create Supportive Organizational System
There should be decentralized and participative decision-making structure where upward communication is more. Clarify organizational policies to everyone and provide more job control and proper job description. The organizational culture should be such that, innovative thinking is encouraged even if it leads to failed ideas, this also helps in bringing down the stress experienced by the employees.
4.2 Ergonomics and Environmental Design
Need for improvement in equipment used and their good physical working conditions are in much demand in present tech-savvy world, and undoubtedly this will become one of the best stress coping strategies at organizational level. Therefore, organizations should provide all resources to get better output and avoid worker’s frustration.
4.3 Awareness About New Technology
The use of the computer and other software technology has been inevitable and necessary. Therefore all the employees should be exposed to various computer tools, and the proper training should be held on continuous and regular bases.
4.4. Stress Counselling
The employees can be provided with a counsellorfor helping them to deal with work related and personal problems in order to understand and solve stress related problems to control mostly behavioral and emotional outcomes of employees.
4.5. Educational and Training Programs
Plan and develop career paths and provide educational programs especially tailored to suit employees’ job profiles. The employees can be given weekly sessions of Yoga and other such relaxing exercises so that they are able to deal with stress in a more constructive manner. Life style modification programs at individual and organizational level are recommended.
4.6. Organizational get together and Fun
An informal get together would help in creating personal bonds between the various individuals belonging to the organization and this will definitely contribute towards better relations at the work place.
4.7 Stress-audit
Conducting stress-audit at organizational level to understand what causes stress and its impact on themselves.
This leads to design the best suitable strategies for managing the stress.
4.8. Work Balance Initiatives
Companies have introduced a variety of strategies to help employees achieve work – life balance in India. They include flexible time options, Job sharing, work from home, use of telecommuting in fulfil the job, and child care support.
4.9 Miscellaneous Organizational Change
The workload should be in line with workers’ capabilities and resources, Job design should stimulate and provide ample opportunities for workers to use their skills, Clarity in workers’ roles and responsibilities, Improved channels of communication, Provide meaningful and timely feedback, and greater responsibility, The organizational goals should be realistic, Have a fair and proper distribution of incentives and salary structure, Promote job rotation and job enrichment, Create a unbiased and safe working environment, Have effective hiring and orientation procedure, Appreciate the employees on accomplishing and Ensuring social interaction opportunities among workers. The fundamental approach to manage stress should be based on openness, honesty, and integrity. It is essential that a mutual understanding between staff and managers is created and developed.If it is not taken care properly organizations and their managers must be prepared to face problems of absenteeism, illness, injury, and burnout as a result.
V. CONCLUSION
After examining the existing literature, it is found that the occupational stress is a real challenge for an employee and their employing organization. It can be regarded as a new dimension of Human resource management. A good management is characterized not only by its concern to enhance the contributory efficiency or effectiveness of its employees but also its genuine concern to improve its employees’well-being. A good strategy to ensure employee’s well-being is providing stress-free work environment. Actions to reduce job stress should be given top priority in order to prove good management and good organization.
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