A STUDY OF STRESS MANAGEMENT ON PRIVATE BANKS EMPLOYEES AND IMPACT OF STRESS ON EMPLOYEE S PERFORMANCE AND HEALTH

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1 A STUDY OF STRESS MANAGEMENT ON PRIVATE BANKS EMPLOYEES AND IMPACT OF STRESS ON EMPLOYEE S PERFORMANCE AND HEALTH Dr. Mini Amit Arrawatia 1, Deepanshi 2 1 Assistant Professor, 2 Research Scholar 1,2 Jayoti Vidyapeeth Womens University, Jaipur, Rajasthan,( India) ABSTRACT In this present time stress become a major hurdle of each and everyone s life. In this era, stress in private sector banks is rising incessantly. Competition level is very high in private sector banks so that s why private banks employees are facing more stress problems. In this time stress management is playing a prominent role. Because of stress, private banks employees are facing physical, psychological and behavioural changes in their daily life. These changes give negative impact on employee s personal and professional life. The main purpose of this research to focus on the private sector banks employees because banking employees are very stressed they are highly target driven and also face highly work pressure. Therefore, in order to assess the stress and its bad impact on employee s performance and health of private banks, the study has been taken up. The study has been conducted on 200 employees including private banks managers and employees, randomly selected from different branches of private banks. 220 questionnaires were distributed out of which 156 employees responded. A total of 156 male and female employees from different private banks and branches gave their response. Data was collected using a questionnaire method. The aim of this paper is to identify the main cause of stress and stress management strategies and measure the effect of stress on performance and health of employees. Keywords: - stress, causes of stress, employees performance, Employee s health, stress management strategies I. INTRODUCTION In this time stress is becoming a crucial issue of daily life. Stress affects our physically, mentally, emotionally and behaviourally. Stress is an ordinary human reaction. It is a man s adoptive reaction to an exterior situation. Hans s selye was one of the founding father of research on stress. He stated in 1956, that Stress is not necessarily something bad; it all depends on how we take it. The World Health Organization defines Stress as the reaction people may have when presented with demands & pressures that are not matched to their knowledge & abilities & which challenge their ability to cope In this current era stress is everywhere so to overcome stress related problems there is a need to manage stress issues so Stress management is playing a very vital role now days because without stress management everyone do nothing to manage stress. Stress management helps to reduce stress in each and every field such as banking and finance sector, IT sectors, corporate sectors, education sectors, telecom and BPO sectors. Stress management strategies like stress management programs, reward system, counselling sessions, promotional 341 P a g e

2 activities, training and development programs and employee s assistance programs etc always useful to control the stress related issues. Banking sector is the essential part of our financial system. During the past ten years, banking sectors had gone quick changes in technologies, plans, policies, competition and value of money. Banking sectors are playing a major role to improve country growth rate. Now a day s banking sector employees are facing many stress related difficulties but stress in private banks is increasing very fast. Mostly private banking sectors employees are suffering high level of stress problems which affects employee s performance and health. Most of the time employees of private banks face high and middle level of stress. High level and middle level of stress is harmful it gave bad impact on banks employees working life and personal life both. High level of stress is unavoidable in nature. There are many causes of stress comprise which influenced adversely employees performance and health and also employees daily life. To suffer stress situations employees physical health and mental health both are affected badly. After this employees face many health related issues and it also affects employees life, employees working life and most importantly employees performance so to reduce there is requirement of stress management strategies. Stress management strategies help to alleviate employees stress and try to give a stress free life. II. SCOPE OF THE STUDY This study helps to know about the main cause of stress and also explain how stress affecting private bank employee s performance and health. This study recognizes some stress management strategies because these strategies help to manage the stress of private banks employees and also helps in performance growth. III. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1. To find out the main causes of stress among private bank employees. 2. To recognize the effects of stress on the health of bank employees. 3. To analyze the impact of stress on the performance of private banks employees and examine the relationship of stress and performance. 4. To identify stress management strategies to manage stress of private bank employees. IV. LITERATURE REVIEW 4.1 Performance of Employees Stress affects negatively employee s performances as well as organizational performances. So there is a responsibility of company s manager seriously focused to overcome stress problems and take major steps to manage stress and create a good environment in banks because companies managers play a very prominent role to manage stress problems between banks employees (Balaji R. 2014). Low salaries, lack of advancement and poor relation with higher authority are the source of stress it effects employees attendance, innovation, motivation, organizational loyalty and commitment to deadlines. It also effect performance of bank employees like discipline, attendance, turnover and grievance, so there is necessary to manage stress management strategies through reducing workload, redesigning jobs, growth and advancement opportunities, improvement of higher and lower authority relation, remuneration and improvement of working atmosphere (Nyangahu and Bula,2015). In this time technological changes, increase social responsibilities, social changes and policies changes 342 P a g e

3 are also contain in growth of stress. These changes influenced employee s performance and employee s bad performance gives negative impact on the performance of banks (Shukla H. and Garg R. 2013).There are three factor of stress such environmental, organizational and personal factor. These factors are the big source of stress which affects employees performance in any organizations and organizations suffer low productivity, increased turnover and insurance cost and high absenteeism.(hamdan Y. 2012). This research revealed the relationship between job stress and performance of bank employee s. Day by day stress is become part of our daily life. Stress problem is not bad all the time some time it can be positive and some time can be negative. It is depend upon situations and mind set of everyone. The relationship between job stress and performance is negative in nature. Performance of employees negatively correlated to job stress (Bashir and Ramay 2010).The main purpose of this study to show the relationship between job stress and job performance. Most of the time lower stress helps to increase employee s performance but high stress affects employee s performance badly. Stress affects employee s life but at a certain level.job stress and performance had a negative relationship (Dar and Akmal et al., 2011). Show the effect of job stress on employee s performance. We can control stress related issues but we cannot avoid stress problems. Mostly lack of feedback, role doubt, career development organizational climate and structure are affecting employee s performance in organizations. So we can overcome these stress problems through cooperative and supportive atmosphere for employees of banks through this employee s performance increase (Ahmed and Ramzan, 2013).Also analysed the impact of occupational stress on employee s performance at work place and determine the stress at work. it gave negative effect on work stress to each and every individuals. Low satisfaction and motivation is the specific reason of poor performance (Goswami T. G. 2015). 4.2 Health of Employees Private Banks employees face different kinds of health related difficulties such as tension, depression, anxiety, heard attack, diabetes, frustration, headache, shoulder pain. These health issues affect employee s performance and employees working capacity decrease badly day by day. (Ali, Hassan and Bashir 2013).Stress affects badly on employee s health & organizational health both. Physical, behavioural, emotional these changes create various issues which affect employee s health Tension, depression, anxiety, headache, blood pressure are common. These health issues affect employee s performance too. Stress also affects overall productivity of employees and organization. When employee s performance and productivity decreased then employees felt demotivated and employee s motivation level decreased (Khalil Wani S. 2013). Occupational health stresses dangerous for employees. Depression, Anxiety, tension, low tolerance, and hair lose, aggressive and separation is the major reasons of stress which affect health of employees (Malik, 2015). 4.3 Stress Management Strategies Private sector banks focus on some stress management programs and activities witch support to manage stress problems. Stress management strategies helps to reduce employee s personal and professional life stress (Sharmila and Poornima 2012). And to manage stress issues in banks, mostly training and development sessions and effective communication programs, time management programs play a very important role (Azad T. 2014). Training programs give positive impact on banking sector employees working life. Training programs helps in 343 P a g e

4 development of employees growth and also helpful to reduce work stress. (Deshwal S. 2015). Stress management strategies always helpful to overcome stress problems of bank employees and build stress free environment in banks. There are two way of stress management strategies to control stress first is individual oriented strategies it contain single active, single passive, group activities, exercises and meditation comes and in second organizational oriented strategies. It includes stress management programs, employee s assistance programs, physical activities, promotional activities (R. 2015).There are different types of stress which affects employee s life these are Eustress, distress, anticipatory, traumatic, chronic, acute, time, encounter and situational stress and everyone have only four strategies such as avoid the stressor, alter the stressor, adopt to the stressor and accept the stressor to manage stress problems (Imeokparia, Ediagbonya and Kennedy 2013). V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 5.1 Research Design The present study is descriptive in nature. The study is based on primary data. 5.2 Sample Size The sample size selected for this study to managers and employees of private sector banks and this survey has done in 3 cities of Rajasthan these are Jaipur, Ajmer and Jodhpur. Private bank contain some selected private banks like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank. Questionnaires were distributed and collected personally by the researcher in each and every bank. 5.3 Sources of Data The study will consist of both primary and secondary data. The primary data was collected by direct interview through questionnaire. The secondary data was collected from research publications, standard journal and periodicals including the government organizations and from respective records about the job related occurrence. 5.4 Statistical Analysis The study conducted in 2016 to 2017 in private sector banks in the 3 cities of Rajasthan. Out of 220 questionnaires only 156 were used for research analysis because few questionnaires were incomplete and delayed in response. 5.5 Statistical Tool and Techniques For the purpose of analysis of data Reliability and Validity test correlation test to find out relationship between stress and employees performance and regression analysis also used. One way ANOVA test was also applied with the help of SPSS 23 software. 5.6 Analysis of Data The survey data was collected by the use of structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided in to two categories; first category is related to demographic questions and second category related to causes of stress, health of employees and stress management strategies and performance of employees. 344 P a g e

5 VI. DEMOGRAPHIC This category depicts the demographic framework of the respondents in the term of gender, age, work experience, education qualification. 6.1 Gender Figure1.1 The graph on Gender simply shows the participant of male and female respondents. The results shows in this graph, large number of respondents are male. Male respondents are 133 (85%) out of the 156 respondents and in this survey small number of female respondents that is only 23 (15%) out of 156 respondents. In private banks large proportion of male employees and less proportion of female employees are working. 6.2 Age Figure1.2. this graph shows the groups of age for the respondents. The age groups of respondents shows from 21 to 60 years. This graph shows the age of private banks employees. The age group divided in to 4 categories these are (21-30), (31-40), (41-50) and (51-60). In this survey most of the respondents were from the first category that is In first category (21-30) over all 101 employees contain that is 64%.In private sector banks large number of employees working in banks 21 years to 30years. After this in second category 50 respondent that is 32%. In third category with 3% and the last category no age group respondent found. In private banks mostly employees working who recently completed their bachelor and master degree. In private sector banks there are less number of employees working after 50 ages. 345 P a g e

6 6.3 Work Experience Figure 1.3 this graph shows the work experiences of the respondents in their current organizations. This graph depicts the works experiences of the respondents in their banks. Below 3 years large number of respondents contain these are 89 (57%) out of 156 respondents. In 4 to 7 years over all 43 (27%) of the respondents contain and in 8 to 11 years over all 19(12%) respondents and in 12 to 15 working years only 5 (3%) respondents founds. In last above 16 years there are no respondent. In private sector banks massive number of employees has working experience below 3 years and some employees have 4 years to 15 years works experience but very less employees above 16 years. 6.4 Education Qualification Figure 1.4 this graph shows the respondents in terms of their highest educational qualifications. There are 4 level of education qualification. Total 49 (31%) of respondents are educated out of 156 respondents from Bachelor Degree. In this survey masters degree holders are the highest within the respondents. Total 78 respondents have master degree and the proportion is 50%. In the employee s higher education and qualification only 28 (17%) respondents have other degree. 2. Second categories shows effect of stress on employee s health and performance and also depicts that bank employees manage stress with the help of stress management strategies. 346 P a g e

7 6.5 Causes of Stress This graph shows the causes of stress among private sector bank employees. Workload is the major cause of stress among private bank employees that is 57%. 89 respondents consider out of 156 respondents. After this working environment also the main cause of stress that is 55%. Banks employees face many technical issues so it contains 54%.Lack of management support, long working hours and lack of motivation and contain 51%, 50% and 44% respectively. Banks employee also suffers lots of peer pressure that is 48% and lack of authority in decision making comprised 43% respondents. 75 respondents agreed out of 156 respondents that high targets are the main cause of stress because in every private sector banks some employees work related to insurance, marketing and sales so they have a high targets and banks gives urgent deadlines to complete that particular target so there are only 52% respondents of urgent deadlines. Ignorance of others and lack of communication contain 40% and 38% respectively Health Issues of Employees 347 P a g e

8 This graph depicts the health issues which affect private bank employee s health. When stress affects employee s health then employees faced this types of health problems. It is observed from the survey that large number of respondent s 107 out of 156 suffers from headache and weakness (tiredness). Headache and weakness (tiredness) both contain 68% respondents. Over all 56% respondents suffer mood swings. When anyone suffers from stress problems then they easily frustrated or irritated of the others and overall 83(53%) respondents easily frustrated out of 156 respondents. When anyone suffer with increased or decreased appetite then weight gain or weight loss problem arise and after this digestive problem also increased. 50% respondents suffer weight gain or loss problems and 42% employees have increased or decreased appetite and 42% respondents suffer digestive problem. Due to stress employees face difficulties in sleep. They did not sleep well that s why employee s memory became low day by day. Good sleep is a way to overcome stress in their life but if anyone did not take good sleep so it is only because of stress. Memory became low and sleep difficulties contain 47% and 39% respondents respectively. When anyone comes under stress so who have a habit of smoking and alcohol then usually smoking and alcohol habit increased. 47% respondents agreed with this. Abnormal heartbeat and breath faster is the sign of diabetes. 36% of the respondents suffer from abnormal heartbeat and less % (25%) of respondents suffers from diabetes problem. 6.7 Employee s Performance a). Descriptive Statistics Items Mean Std. Deviation N Cronbach's Alpha Do you feel that working environment affecting your performance? How often technical problems effect your performance? Do you think that long work hours give bad impact on your performance? Do you feel that urgent deadline and workload gives bad impact on your performance? Do you feel that lack of co-operation with your superior affect your performance? Do you feel that increase responsibility and high targets giving negative impact on your performance? Do you think that lack of authority in decision making affect your performance? Do you feel that lack of motivation affect your performance? Do you feel that lack of management support affect your performance? Correlation Analysis This table shows the relationship between stress and employees performance. 348 P a g e

9 **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) This table show the relationship between independent (working environment, technical problem, long working hours, urgent deadline and workload, lack of cooperation with superior, high targets, lack of motivation, and lack of management support) and dependent variable ( performance of employees). For the purpose of analysis and interpretations and to identify the correlation between main causes of stress and employees performance, Pearson correlation analysis was applied which show that there is a positive correlation between causes of stress and employees performance. Lack of motivation shows the highest positive correlation (r =1.000). High targets positive correlation (r =.448) and lack of authority in decision making shows correlation (r =.365). In this correlation table shows negative correlation between lack of cooperation with superior(r =.322) and (r =.300) of urgent deadline and workload. Long working hours also shows negative correlation that is (r =.275). Technical problem shows (r =.224).in the last working environment shows highly negative correlation(r =.160) with employees performance. 349 P a g e

10 6.9 Regression Analysis In this table the value of R is.363, and R square is.084. The value of R shows significantly positive relationship between variables (working environment, technical problem, long working hours, urgent deadline and workload, lack of cooperation with superior, high targets, lack of motivation, and lack of management support) and the performance ( how many times you feel that you are performing without stress). The std. error of estimate is.939 and F change and Sig. F change is.007. ANOVA with Friedman s Test Sum of squares df Mean Square Friedman s chi square Sig Between People Within people Between Item Residual a Total Total Grand Mean = 2.25 Kendall s coefficient of concordance W = Identify stress management strategies to manage stress of private bank employees There are some stress management strategies which helps to manage stress of private bank employees. The following are the outcome of this study. [1] Employees Assistance Programs (EAP):- Employee s Assistance Program is like an employee s benefit program. It is short term counseling for employees to solve personal problems. It affects on employee s job performance, employees health and employees personal and professional problems. EAP helps people to understand or to overcome their personal problem. 86% respondents agree that EAP helps to reduce employees stress and 14% respondents disagree with this. [2] Employee Counseling Sessions: - Counseling session is very prominent stress management strategies. It is like a meeting between organizations superior and subordinates.counseling session contain 65% respondents who are agree that counseling session helps to manage stress. 35% respondents are not satisfied. [3] Training Development Programmer: - Training and development programmers very useful for employees. It helps employees improve skills and knowledge which helps in performance growth in their current job. It includes 78% respondents who think that training and development program give positive impact to overcome stress and 22% respondents did not think. 350 P a g e

11 [4] Meditation & Yoga: - It is a very useful and beneficial stress management strategy to manage stress level. Meditation good for peace of mind and yoga is like a mind body practice. It helps to reduce stress level, blood pressure problems and good for heart and mind too. To reduce stress problem so there is a need to do meditation and yoga at least 20 to 25 minute daily. In this study 68% respondents agreed and 32% are not agreed. [5] Time Management: - To manage stress issues there is a need to manage time. Time management helps to manage the balance between personal and professional life. Employees set short term and long term goals according to the time and finish project on time. In this survey overall 63% respondents gave positive response and 32% respondents gave negative. [6] Stress Management Programmers: - It is the important stress management strategies to manage stress between bank employees. It s necessary that every organization conduct Stress management programs and sessions for the awareness about how to deal with stress issues. Stress management program include 74% respondents and 26% respondents are different point of view. [7] Promotional Activities: - Promotional Activities help to overcome stress issues between lower level employees. It is an effective stress management strategy which helps to control stress issues in employee s life and helps to improve employee s performance. Total 71% respondents understand that it helps to manage stress problems and 29% respondents are not agreed. [8] Reward System: - It s compulsory that every organization organize reward system to increase the morale and performance of employees and it give positive impact for the encouragement of employees. It helps to manage stress problems in employees working life. 80% employees think that reward system reduces stress level and 20% employees think that it is not helpful. [9] Motivational Session: - Motivational sessions play a significant role to decrease stress level between bank employees. So it s necessary that every employee attend motivational session to motivate themselves. Overall 76% of employees are supportive to manage stress through motivational sessions and 24% employees think that this is totally wastage of time. [10] Individual Activities and Group Activities: - Individual and group activities both are necessary to manage stress problems. Individual activities (reading, writing, photography, art, listening music, running ) and group activities ( sports, games, vacations, movies, show and theatre) are gave positive impact on employees life and also manage stress.83% of respondents think it manage stress problems and remain 17% respondents think it did not work to reduce stress. VII. FINDINGS [1] In this study male employees are more then to female employees. Most of the employees come under 25 to 40 age and large number of employees has bachelor and masters degree. [2] In private sector banks mostly employees have 1 to 7 years work experience. [3] In private sector banks almost employees including male and female agreed that workload, technical problem, working environment lack of motivation and cooperation with superior and long working hours are the main causes of stress. 351 P a g e

12 [4] Most of the employees agree that they completed their work on time and did not take their work in home and avoid staying late at the office to finish their work. [5] Mostly employees think that training programs are better for the employee s performance as well se banks performance. [6] Some employees are not satisfied with their work. Large number of employees suffers high level of stress in their organizations less number of employees suffer low stress. [7] In private sector banks most of the employees physical and mental stress both. [8] High percentage of respondents suffers headache, tiredness, mood swings and frustration and sleep difficulties. [9] Most of the employees agree with EAP (Employees Assistance Program) also very helpful to solve employee s personal issue and try to help to give them stress free life. So there is a need to more focus on EAP. [10] There is significant positive relationship between stress and performance of employees. In correlation of stress and employees performance most of the dimensions have positive relationship. VIII. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The purpose of this study to identify the main causes of stress so this study depicts that workload, working environment and technical problems and urgent deadlines are the main cause of stress but some of the time lack of management support, long working hours also the cause of stress of private bank employees. In private sector banks most of the employees have stress problems and these causes gives bad impact on employee s life. Large numbers of employees agree with this. After this, study recognized the health problems of employees because stress also gives negative impact on employee s health. I private sector banks most of the employees suffer headache, mood swings problem, easily frustrated with anyone and increase or decrease appetite and blood pressure high and low problem. These health issues are very harmful of employee s health. In private banks employees have no time to manage the personal and professional life both that s why they did not give more attention to their health so after this they suffer these types of health problems which gives bad effect on employee s life. And this study also depicts the impact of stress on employee s performance. Everyone knows that most of the time stress gave negative impact on employees performance but some of the time it gave positive impact. It s based upon employees situations and capabilities that which level of stress employees facing and how to take stress positive way or negative way. Most of the employees it stresses in negative way. In this study most of the time stress affects employee s performance. This study shows few causes of stress which affects employee s performance and after this it show the relationship between stress and employees performance. There is a positive relation between stress and employees performance. But some variable it show negative relationship. In banking sector competition is increasing very fast. Private Banks facing lots of stress problems so there is needed to use stress management strategies to overcome or handle stress problems. This study also revealed some stress management strategies which are very useful to manage stress between employees. Mostly respondents used some strategies to overcome stress in their life such as meditation and yoga, individual and group activities, motivational sessions. Some respondent agree with training and development programs, time management, promotional activities and appreciation and rewards also helpful to 352 P a g e

13 manage stress. But there is a need to focus on employee s problems and issues if private banks manager more focus on employees problems and stress and give positive environment and also give positive feedback of employees performance so it will help to reduce stress of private banks employees and also helps to reduce stress of private banks. REFERENCES [1] Ahmed & Ramzan (2013). Effects of Job Stress on Employees Job Performance A Study on Banking Sector of Pakistan. Journal of Business and Management, 11(6). [2] Ali, T.V., Hassan A., Ali T. & Bashir R. (2013).Stress Management in Private Banks of Pakistan. Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences (JETEMS), 4(3) [3] Azad, T. (2014). Managing Stress among Banking Sector Employees in Bhopal.IRC S International Journal of Multidisciplinary in Research and Management Scienc, 2(2), [4] Balaji, R., (2014). Role of Human Resource Manager in Managing Stress of Employees in Manufacturing Concerns. International Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, 3 (4), [5] Bashir, U. and Ramay, M.I. (2010). Impact of Stress on Employees Job Performance: A Study on Banking Sector. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 2(1), [6] Dar, L. & Akmal, A. et al. (2011). Impact of Stress on Employees Job Performance in Business Sector of Pakistan. Global Journal of Management and Business Research, 11(6), 1-5. [7] Deshwal, S.(2015). Role of stress management courses: A case study of banking sector employees. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 2(10), [8] Goswami T.G. (2015).Job Stress and Its Effect on Employee Performance in Banking Sector, Indian Journal of Commerce & Management Studies, 4(2) [9] Hamdan Y. (2012).Work Stress and its Management: A Practical Case Study. European Journal of Business and Management, 4(18). [10] Imeokparia, Ediagbonya and Kennedy (2013). Stress management: An approach to Ensuring High Academic Performance of Business Education Students. European journal of Educational Studies, 5(1). [11] Khalil W. S. (2013). Job stress and its impact on employee motivation: a study of a select commercial bank. International Journal of Business and Management Invention (ISSN), 2(3) [12] Malik, F. (2015). Occupational Health Stress in the Service Sector, 20(3) Retrieved from [13] Nyangahu, K. P. & Bula, H. O. (2015). Relationship between work stress and Performance of Employees: A Case Study of Transit Hotel in Nairobi City County. Achieves of Business Research, 3(6), doi: /abr !! [14] Sharmila, A. & Poornima, J. (2012).A study on employee stress management in selected private banks in Salem. International Business Management, [15] Shukla, H. & Garg, R. (2013).A Study on Stress Management among the Employees of NationalizedBanks,2(3) P a g e