Proposal for thesis occupational stress

How occupational stress affects employee’s job satisfaction? A research in the occupational stress and human resource management practices in the organization.

ABSTRACT

This study will present the empirical evidence on the nature and effects of some selected occupational stress indicator and its impact on some human resource management practices (HRM) in relation to employee’s job satisfaction of a organization (Alpha Mega/Carrefour/any other organizations). For the analysis, data will be collected through the novel survey on selected OSI(occupational stress index) and HRM practices which is related to employee’s job satisfaction, based on a representative random sample of employee from the entire employee (population) of the organizations (i.e:Alpha Mega/Carrefour) using an appropriate questionnaire. To study how OSI affect the employee’s job satisfaction, various statistical methods like percentage, co-relation and regression etc. will be used. Finally, various conclusions and required recommendation based on the findings of the study will be formulated.

INTRODUCTION

In everyday life, almost everyone is subjected to a wide range of pressures. Although today, there are many wide ranges of resources and strategies for coping with pressure. Sometimes individual’s cope well and do not feel that the pressure is having any adverse effect upon them while on the other hand, sometimes individual’s do have difficulty in dealing with the situation and that is when one can say that individual’s are under the term “stress”.

Occupational stress is described as the strain to which people are subjected when demands and expectations are out of keeping with their capabilities and skills. Occupational stress results, for example, by excessive demands but also from the lack of stimulus entailed, for example, by excessive monotony in the workplace. One can also define the Occupational stress by just saying there are only two times I fell stress: Day and Night. “Occupational/job stress can be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker. Occupational stress can lead to poor health and even injury.”

Occupational stress can also be described as a process, involving a transaction between an individual and his/her work environment. The employee’s response to work stress can be either psychological, physical or both (Cooper & Cartwright, 1994; Kristensen, 1996; Santos & Cox, 2000), and is usually categorized as being acute, post traumatic, or chronic.

The issue of job stress is of utmost importance to the public health community and working people. The economic costs of job stress in general (absenteeism, lost productivity) are difficult to estimate but could be as high as several hundred-billions/per years (Schnall PL, Landsbergis PA, Baker D. job Strain and Cardiovascular Disease. Annual Review of Public Health; 15:381-411, 1994. Schnall PL, Landsbergis PA, Schwartz JE, Pickering TG. Job Strain and Hypertension, Vol. no .2, p.167-8). Most importantly, there is the potential for preventing much illness and death. More than 50 million Americans have high blood pressure, and, in 95 percent of cases, the cause is unknown.

On the other hand, Human Resource Management (HRM) is the most important part of any organizational goal achievement or success. Most organizations job satisfaction is a major determinant of the organizational success. Job satisfaction does not occur in a vacuum. It is necessary to take a systems perspective and look not only at employees, but also at the environments in which they are expected to perform. Organizational environment depends on adopted particular HRM practices by the organization. It has been said that if a good performers is put in bad systems, the systems will win every time.

All employers want employees who perform their jobs well. Job satisfaction is a psychological state that refers positive motivation of an individual towards his/her jobs. It is a relatively recent term that the organizations are focusing their attention. A person’s level of job satisfaction can be influenced by many factors; some of these factors include the level of pay and benefits, the perceived fairness of the promotion system within a company, the quality of the working conditions, leadership and social relationships, and the job itself such as the variety of tasks involved, the interest and challenge the job generates, and the clarity of the job description or requirements.

Organizations must have employees who are able to quickly adapt to an ever-changing world market. Therefore, companies need to concentrate on the job satisfaction determininant factors such as: job description and specification, on going employee training and development, reward and payment system, career planning and good working environment in regard to their employees in order to achieve the best from the employees (Guest 2003, 2004; Purcell 2002, 2004).

RESEARCH QUESTION

Employee performance or job Satisfaction is our goal. In order to reach our goal we explained occupational stress as well as HRM practices of working environment. This study is directed at testing a hypothesis that there is a relationship between occupational stress and Human Resource Management practices (HRM) of organizations in terms of job satisfaction.

Based on the literature these key questions underpin this work.

What evidence is there that organization use HRM strategically with a view to reducing their employee’s occupational stress?

Does the organization take a strategic approach to HRM experience for better cope of occupational stress?

What will be employee’s job satisfaction level if organizations experience occupational stress?

Based on the outcome of the above mentioned questions the study will be addressed the following objectives:

To measure the occupational stress of the organizations.

To identify the HRM practices by the organization which deals with employee health.

To determine the relationship between occupational stress and employee’s job satisfaction.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Work stress or occupational stress has been researched for several years now. Recently, it has became a major concern for organizations since its effects imposed on an organization could be tremendous and may range from lost productivity, to burnout, to increased absenteeism which could hinder the organizations ability to accomplish its goals. According to Anderson, Schalk and Humprey, work stress has been described as an incompatibility between the individual and his or her environment.

According to Skues and Kirby coping with stress is multinational factors and particularly the appraisal of the situation by the individual.

Researchers have proposed that a third group of coping responses can be idenfied, namely perception-focused coping (Perlin & Schooler, 1978). This group can include strategies such as positive re-appraisal, minimization or seeking meaning (Parry, 1990), and generally involve attempts to minimize the threat associated with a problem, redefining the problem or redirecting attention to a different aspect of the situation. The characteristic that appears to differentiate these strategies from emotion-focused and problem-coping is that they tend to focus on cognitions and perceptions rather than emotional or behaviors (Holahan & Moos, 1983).

Keilhofner (1995) noted that if the employer-employee relationship is not restored quickly or, at least replaced, the long-term outcome for the worker is likely to be negative. In cases of work stress, the loss of work-related roles and relationships has the potential to exacerbate the psychological condition of the worker, thus complicating the diagnosis and management of work-related injury.

Different management techniques, especially new ones, such as Human Resource Management, Lean Production, Business Process Reengineering, and total Quality Management can be identified as causes of work-related stress. This is, because the thought of change and the fear of the unknown almost always create stressful situations. In addition, time is needed for adjusting to new management techniques and until this adjustment happens, the period in between may be quite stressful (http://www.workstress.net/causes.htm).

Though popular applications of the Yerkes Dodson Law (Benson and Allen, 1980; Certo; 2003; Lussler, 2000), common management practice assumes that a ‘reasonable’ amount of pressure in the work environment leads to higher performance among employees, than if stress not present. (le Ferre, Matheny and Kolt, 2003).This coincides with some past belief which generally assumed that, the relationship between performance and stress, was curvilinear in nature, in other words low levels of stress were assumed to increase performance, however, beyond some point increased levels contributed to a reduction in performance.

However, this relationship may be true under some conditions. Recent evidence suggest that stress (even at relatively low level), has mainly negative effects on task performance. For example Danna and Griffin (1999) in their work, they state that occupational stress represents a real threat to the quality of life for the employees. If a person is unable to cope, or if support is lacking, stress then becomes a negative phenomenon which can lead to physical illness and psychological problems. Such situations would ultimately lead to lower levels of performance.

The Health and Safety Executive (2000) states that around half a million people in the UK experience work-related stress at a level that they believe makes them ill. More recent reports state that up to five million people feel “very” or “extremely” stressed by their work and work-related stress, and it is estimated to cost society about £3.7 billion every year (Johnson, Cooper, Cartwright, Donald, Taylor and Millet, 2005).Cartwright and Boyes (2000), argued and estimated that, in the UK, over 60 percent of the workplace absences are due to stress. Further, according to Greenberg (2000), an American nationwide survey conducted by a large life insurance company, showed that nearly 46 percent of American employees believe that their jobs are “highly” stressful. Also as reported by the UK Conferederatiion of Business and Industry (CBI), “work stress” was the second biggest cause of absence in the UK workforce (CBI, 2001).

Harper and Vilkinas (2005) consider performance management systems (PMS) from key stakeholders, managers, and employees’ perspectives. Their study makes two key points. First, the stakeholders and managers stated that the PMS had a more positive impact on the performance than did the employees and second the study highlights the difficulties encountered when evaluating PMS. This research notes that differing evaluations of impact will arise according to the perspective from which the impact is being observed.

.The effect of stress can be both physical and/or psychological. Stress has been defined by stress researchers as the ‘silent killer’. According to Greenberg (2002) and others, medical experts claim that there is a very strong link between stress and personal health, and concluded that health related effects are not only very widespread but also extremely serious; they can play a major role in determining the physical and/or psychological health of an individual, as well as the success of an organization.

The issue of job stress is of utmost importance to the public health community and working people. For this purpose, the job Strain Model has been developed by Robert Karasek, who argues that work stress and the resulting physical and mental health effects of work stress result, “not from a single aspect of the work environment , but from the joint effects of the demands of a work situation and the range of decision making freedom (discretion) available to the worker facing those demands…….Job s strain occurs when job demands are high and job decision latitude is low.

The “job strain” model states that the combination of high job demands and low job decision latitude will lead to negative physical health outcomes such as hypertension and cardiovascular disease(CVD). In addition , the model contains important predictions regarding the socialization of personality traits and behavior patterns, which occur at work. Chronic adaption to low control-low demand situations (“passive” jobs in figure ) can result in reduced ability to solve problems or tackle challenges or feelings of depression. Conversely, when high job demands are matched with greater authority and skill use ( controllable stressors or “active” jobs ) , more active learning and greater internal locus of control develop. This can enable individuals to develop a broader range of coping strategies.

In final conclusion , the “job strain” model emphasizes the need to distinguish features of the work environment that can be categorized as demands or control , examines the interaction between demands and control, and emphasizes the stress-producing properties of these objective factors, and not solely individual perceptions or persons-environment fit.

Most problems associated with work stress are gradual in their build-up, therefore identifying and dealing with the factors that cause them early on, can bring major benefits to both the employees and the employer. Very importantly, reinforcing the implementation of any stress reducing policies, and being open minded about issues on work stress, will ultimately lead to a healthy work environment.

REAEARCH METHODOLOGY

Methods and procedures used in conducting research need very careful consideration. Methodology should be such be that enables the researcher to collect valid information’s and to analyze the same properly to arrive at correct decisions. The methodology of this study will focus on quantitive approach. The methods and procedures which will be followed in conducting this research are being described below.

Locale of the study

The locale of the research study will be supermarket of Alpha mega/Carrefour or any other organization located in Nicosia, Lemassol and Larnaka.

Population and Sample

All the employees of Alpha mega/Carrefour/other organization will be considered as the population of the study. An updated list of employees will be collected from the authority. Out of all employees 100 employees (50 men and 50 women) will be selected purposively as sample of the study.

Instrument for Data collection

In this research study required data from the employee will be collected with the help of a structured questionnaire designed for getting clean information about employees’ views, ideas regarding Occupational stress and the human resource management practices of the organization and their performance level as well. Both closed and open form questions will be included in the questionnaire. Simple and direct questions in accordance with the objectives of the study will be included to ascertain the opinion of the employees regarding a number of aspects involved in this study. The questionnaire will be pre­­­-tested with a few portions of the employees to get necessary corrections, additions modification. The modified and corrected questionnaire will be finally used for data collection.

Data collecting procedure

Data will be collected by the researcher himself. Prior to data collection researcher will requested the employee to provide necessary help and co-operation for data collection. The researcher will make all possible efforts to establish rapport with the respondents so that they could feel free to response the questions contained in the questionnaire. Data collection thus from the respondents will be then complied, tabulated.

Selection of dependent and Independent Variables

The successful selection of variables results in success of a research. In appropriate and inconsistent selection of variables may lead to faulty results. The researcher selected the variables for the study.

Employee performance or job satisfactions are the main focus of this study and it will be considered as the dependent variables. Therefore, researcher selected some Occupational stress index which is related to HRM practices such as equal employment opportunity, managing diversity, job analysis, job description, job specifications, recruitment, selection , training, and development, Career planning, performance management, compensation strategies, and finally employee and Organizational relations as independent variables.

Data processing and Analysis

Compilation of data

After completion of field survey data from all the questionnaires will be coded, compiled, tabulated and analyzed in accordance with the objectives of the study. In this process, all the responses in the questionnaire will be given numerical coded values.

Statistical technique

The analysis will be performed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) computer package. Descriptive analysis such as range, number and percentage, mean, standard deviation and rank order will be used whenever necessary. Pearson’s Product Moment Co-efficient of Correlation (r) will be used in order to explore the relationship between the concerned variables. Throughout the study, at least five-percent (0.05 ) level of probability will be used as basis of rejecting a null hypothesis.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

1. The research will be conducted through the permission of the due authority to     conduct the study with their employee response.

2. Special care will be taken to avoid personal biasness and opinion of the      researcher to ensure fair consideration.

3. The research will be conducted under the assumption that the researcher will      keep the findings anonymous.

4. Result of the research work will be accurately represented what is observed based

on the actual response of the respondents. Reasonable and appropriate sample     will be selected to obtain reasonable standard of result.

5. Appropriate conclusions and recommendations will be drawn on the basis of the     findings of the research.