View of A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PERCEIVED STRESS LEVEL AMONG PROFESSIONALS FROM DIFFERENT SECTORS IN INDORE CITY

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Vol.04,Special Issue 05, (ICIR-2019) September 2019, Available Online: www.ajeee.co.in/index.php/AJEEE

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A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PERCEIVED STRESS LEVEL AMONG PROFESSIONALS FROM DIFFERENT SECTORS IN INDORE CITY

Rekha Narang, Pranay Karnik, RashmiGharia

Assistant Professor, Prestige Institute of Management and Research, Indore

Abstract - Stress has become one of the most talked about issues related to employees and their productivity. More and more people are becoming aware about stress and putting efforts to handle, manage or avoid stress. Most of the modern day professions have challenges like extended working hours, role overlap, multi tasking, relocation, role mismatch and job insecurity. Professionals often consider switching to a less stressful job but sometimes entry barriers in other industries and huge competition makes it difficult for them. Ongoing discussions on stress in public domain have made people aware about stress but they also need to be aware about various challenges of other industries before making a move in their career. This paper has thus tried to compare the perceived stress among the professionals of telecom, BFSI, IT and academics, the perception towards opting alternative career(s) of their preference, and the factors affecting the same. The perceived scale stress by Cohen was used in the study and the responses were taken from the respondents belonging to all these sectors and to various age groups.

Key Words: Perceived Stress, Professionals, Workload, Relocation.

1 INTRODUCTION

Stress is considered to be a silent killer which is accused to claiming several lives. In recent years work related stress has also caused anxiety and depression among many young professionals across sectors. According to a study conducted by Willis Towers Watson, among more than 100 Indian organizations, it was found that now they are realizing that employee stress can have serious consequences and they need to take remedial actions.

Flexi-time work option was the primary strategy to deal with stress followed by stress management initiatives. They also believed that reducing the stress will be beneficial for the employees as well as for the organization. A survey conducted by Optum in 2016 among 800000 employees in 70 large companies found that nearly half of the employees in India suffer from some kind of stress. Another study by 1to1 help.net found that the proportion of workers at high risk of suicide has doubled in 2018 as compared to 2016 which was 2-4% . As people are moving to big cities due to urbanization, lack of family support and more travel time for work is leading to work life imbalance. Intensifying peer pressure to maintain a particular lifestyle, EMIs, uncertainty in careers are all adding to anxiety and are lading to stress and depression. On one hand lack of desired skills, high standards of expected performance, uncertain career path and unrealistic expectations seem to be the basic causes for stress, but on the other hand, many high performing individuals with a proven track record too have been affected by stress and have taken up jobs which are relatively less stressful even if they are less rewarding. A survey conducted by Hush, a Human Resource tech startup conducted a survey amongst 3000 respondents of industries like IT, manufacturing, startups and finance revealed that nearly 22% employees felt that their productivity is low due to overwork and stress and more than a half of the respondents reported that they suffered from workplace depression. This has also resulted in more and more number of working professionals seeking medical help in dealing with anxiety and stress. 40% of all the patients in the working age group at Fortis healthcare complained about work related anxiety and depression.

According to the CMIE data, more than 1 Crore jobs were lost in 2018 in India.

Sectors like telecom, which has seen nearly 75000 job losses which is nearly 25% of its entire work force. Automation in IT industry has resulted in layoffs and has forced people to look for alternative careers or less rewarding jobs. The BFSI sector too has been through a big turmoil in recent years and especially, Micro Finance companies have been adversely affected by demonetization and the agrarian crisis. People who have lost their jobs in all these sectors along with some other sectors have been forced people to settle for less rewarding jobs, relocating to different places, making moves in unrelated industries and increasing overall competition. Increased awareness about stress and its ill effects has made many professionals to look for an alternative career options which are even though less rewarding than their current jobs, but are less stressful. For many of them, a career in

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academics is one of the choices too, but factors like lower salaries and requirements related to educational qualification act as a barrier toward choosing this career. However, this particular industry too has its own challenges. A constant need of updating one's skills and pedagogy, ensuring doing quality research along with the administrative activities related to their jobs keeps the academicians always on the test.

This paper tried to measure and compare the perceived stress of professionals working in IT, BFSI, Telecom and education industries, to now their choice of alternative career and the major barriers in their alternative career options.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Stress is a common phenomenon and is part and parcel of life. Despite various attempts by professionals to conceptualize stress still no conclusive definition has been found. Some scholars like Selye (1976), defined it as the general response, which the human body makes to any demand placed on it. Factors like the personality type and demographic variables of the individuals, the availability and quality to utilize the coping mechanism, the existence of pressurizing factors can cause stress.

Professionals stress can be described as the uncomfortable situations experienced by various professionals on the job. Stress is a feeling of anxiety, fear, inability to cope, frustration and happiness (Kyriacou & PeiYu, (2004)). After World War II that stress was viewed as part of human emotions (Lazarus, 1993b).

According to a survey conducted by Cigna TTK Healthcare Insurance 89% of the population in India is suffered from stress as compared to the global average of 86% and the major causes of the stress found were work and finances. (ET Bureau, 10th July 2018).

Another survey conducted by CIGNA also reveals that 9 out of 10 Indians suffer from stress. The findings of 2018 Cigna 360 Well Being Survey also showed that Indians were found to have higher levels of stress as compared to other developed and emerging countries. The survey further revealed that stress is more amongst 95% of Indian millenials of the age group of 18-34 against the global average of 86%. (Business Today.In Last Updated: July 10, 2018 | 15:26 IST).

Another Cigna 360 Well Being Survey was conducted in 2019 in which 84% of the respondents revealed that they are under stress, whereas 13% respondents considered that their stress was unmanageable. Personal finance (17%), Workload (16%) and personal health concerns (14%) were found to be major stressors. The survey also indicated that Indian working women (88%) are more stressed than working men (85%) out of which 13%

of women claim unmanageable stress as compared to 11% of men. The result of the survey also indicated that people in the age group of 35-49 years are most affected as compared to other age groups.

An article by Kunwar Singh (February 20, 2019) in Quartz India said that Indian companies realized that biggest lifestyle risks factors for employees is stress that contributes 55% as compared to other factors like lack of physical activity (62%), Obesity (43%), Poor financial well being (27%), Tobacco use (25%) (Quartz India). Harish Saras (2018) in his article shared the workplace stress of 8 different countries, including an USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, France and India. In India (Key Figures 2015- 2016) work stress was reported by 80% of the employees, workplace stress was the main reason for quitting the job in 60% of the employees, anxiety and depression was found in 50% of the and 90% of employees showed their interest in participating in corporate stress management programs.

Unpleasant negative emotions which could result from any aspect of stress can be termed as teaching stress (Kyriacou, (2000)).

Asger et.al (2015) while studying organizational stress amongst production employees found that many of the employee are experiencing stress in this sector. Factors which are responsible for causing stress are workload (58%), financial constraints (62%), organizational environment (54%), targets (41%), Leadership and motivation (46%) and job security (58%). They suggested good and safe working environment, work- life balance policies etc, will help to reduce the stress amongst employees.

Geeta Kumari et.al (2014) found that 93% of employees in software company HCL in the age group of 35 to 39 years experienced a high level of stress as compared to other age groups of 30-34 years (91%) and rest are 80%. The researchers concluded that only 26% of

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the employees were feeling and 74% were found frustrated and depressed or not able to concentrate.

A study conducted by Carston et.al (2012) on 1160 participants, aged 16–104 years aimed to investigate how stress varies by socio-demographic characteristics of the residents in a deprived neighborhood found that Stress decreases as the economy situation improves and people get old. Education, civil status and unemployment, initially significant, lost power in association with stress when income and economic deprivation were taken into account.

Another study by Sami Abdo Radman Al-Dubai et.al on 729 railway workers employed at Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) in eight states in Malaysia aimed to determine the level of, and factors associated with, stress among railway workers in Malaysia by administering Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10) found that Education level and type of work were significantly associated with perceived stress among railway workers in this study. Workplace meritocracy, oppressive work situations and attempts to meet employer and public demands had significant associations with perceived stress.

A Study by Ramesh, et.al conducted amongst employees of IT company in Bangalore that factors like work experience, gender, number of the dependents and duration of break time had no association with stress. Most common symptom of stress among the employees was the Insomnia.

Hence from the above literature, it can be said that stress is the major problem to be faced by professionals in India and around the world. It has been accepted by the companies that one of the major cause of depression, well being of an employee and lesser productivity is work-stress experienced by employees and companies are continuously working on reducing the negative effects of stress on employees well being. (Cigna Healthcare Report 2019).

2.1 Objectives of the Study

 To compare the perceived stress level amongst professionals of various sectors.

 To find out the sector with the highest level of perceived stress among professionals.

 To find out the interaction effect of gender, Marital Status, Alternate Source of Income and work experience with current industry on the perceived stress levels of professionals from various sectors.

2.2 Hypotheses

 H01: There is no interaction effect of Gender and Current Industry on the perceived stress.

 H02: There is no interaction effect of Marital Status and Current Industry on the perceived stress.

 H03: There is no interaction effect of Work Experience and Current Industry on the perceived stress.

 H04: There is no interaction effect of Alternate Source of Income and Current Industry on the perceived stress.

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES 3.1 Instrument for Data Collection

Sheldon Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1983) is a psychological instrument for measuring the perception of stress. It is used to know the degree to which situations in one’s life are appraised as stressful. It has 10 items. It uses a 5 point rating scale ranging from “0” to “4”. 0 = Never, 1 = Almost Never, 2 = Sometimes, 3 = Fairly Often, 4 = Very Often. Items 4, 5, 7 and 8 are reversed scored. The reliability of Sheldon Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale according to different researchers is .78 (Cohen &

Williamson, 1988), .89 (Roberti, Harrington & Storch, 2006) and.83 (Gonzalez & Ladero, 2007).

3.2 Sample Selection and Tools for Data Analysis:

The study used a total sample of 174 professionals from different industries Banking, IT, Telecom and academicians based in Indore. We have taken gender , marital status ,Alternate source of Income, work experience ,working hours ,Resident of same city and current Industry as independent variables and Stress as dependent variable. ANOVA two

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way is used to see the Interaction effect of current Industry with all other independent variables on stress by using SPSS version 25. For Reliability analysis Cronbach’s alpha is used and values reported was .72 considered as a high internal consistency. The values in between 0.6 and 0.7 will considered as satisfactory internal consistency (Nunnaly &

Bernstein, 1999).

3.3 Demographic Profile of the Respondents

Variables N=174

Gender n(%) Male

Female 94(54)

80(46)

Age 25-30

30-35 35-40 40 above

45(25.9) 30(17.2) 86(49.4) 13(7.5) Work experience

(In Years)

Below 2 2 – 5 5-10 10-15 Above 15

15(8.6) 43(24.7) 32(18.4) 64(36.8) 20(11.5)

Marital Status Married

Unmarried 139(79.9)

35(20.1)

Current Industry Banking

Telecom IT Academician

42(24.1) 39(22.4) 43(24.7) 50(28.7)

Working hours Less than 8

8-10 hours 11-12 hours

40(23) 98(56.3) 36(20.7)

Alternate source of income Yes

No 40(23)

134(77) Are you a resident of the same city Yes

No 96(55.2)

78(44.8)

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

 Table 2 shows the stress level of professionals of different sectors. Mean Value of Perceived Stress for Banking Professionals is 2.2071± .30592, for Telecom Professionals 2.0026± .26506, IT Professionals 2.2791± .40565 and for academician it is 2.2040± .30902.

 Table 3 shows the interaction effect of alternate source of Income and current Industry on Perceived stress. There was no statistically significant interaction between alternate source of Income and current Industry on Perceived stress, F (3,166) = 2.000, p = .116. The table also indicates that levels of perceived stress do not vary significantly according to Alternate source of Income (p = .868), but it does vary significantly based on Current Profession (p < .05).

 Table 4 shows the effect of Marital Status and Current Industry on Perceived stress.

Perceived stress between married and unmarried do not vary significantly, F (2,167)

= .041, p = .959 .We can also see from the table that Perceived Stress between married and unmarried (p = .158), but it is significantly vary between current Industry (p < .05).

 Table 5 shows the effect of Gender and Current Industry on Perceived stress. There was significant interaction between Gender and Current Industry on Perceived stress, F (3,166) = 6.671, p = .000.

 Table 6 shows the interaction effect of work Experience and current Industry on Perceived stress. There was significant interaction between work Experience and current Industry on Perceived Stress, F (8,158) = 3.417, p = .001.

5 DISCUSSIONS

The study was conducted among 174 working professionals belonging to IT, Telecom, BFSI and academic sectors and it was found that the perceived stress was highest among the professionals of IT industry , followed by those of BFSI, Academics and Telecom industry.

workload, role overload, career, organizational climate, lack of job control, and in particular

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job insecurity are considered to be the main reasons for the same (Prasad et al, 2016). The current profession of the professionals had an impact on their perceived stress levels (p <

.05) whereas the availability of an alternate source of income had no impact on their perceived stress. The marital status of the respondents also had no impact on their perceived stress (p = .158). Work experience and gender also had no impact on the perceived stress of the respondents.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The study was conducted to know the perceived stress levels among the professionals of IT, Telecom, BFSI and Academic sectors and to study the interaction effect of gender, marital status, location and availability of an alternative source of income with current industry.

The study also aimed at understanding that if the respondents were to choose an industry other than their current one to switch to, which has comparatively lower stress than their current one, which industry will they prefer to get into and what could be the entry barriers in that industry. It was found that almost all the respondents had moderate levels of stress and few of them had high levels of stress.

Respondents in the age group of 35-40 and having work experience of 10-15 years had moderate to high stress levels. Considering the fact that usually people start their careers in their early twenties, it can be said that people of the age group of 35-40 nearly have 10-15 years of experience. Thus, we can say that it is the same set of people having the highest stress among all the respondents. The most common reason for the same is usually considered to be mid life crises where a routine life, health issues and uncertainty of the future, work life imbalance affects the stress levels of professionals.

Married respondents had more stress as compared to unmarried ones and respondents having 11-12 working hours had more percentage of people having high stress levels (13 out of 36). Leadership positions with more accountability and responsibility along with having lesser time for themselves and family, often results in increased levels of stress.

Approximately 55 percent of the respondents agreed that academic sector has comparative lower stress and nearly 63% of the respondents cited the barrier to their entry in less stressful jobs as lower salaries and lack of the desired skill-set. However, perceived stress levels, among the academicians were also found to be significant.

Approximately 90% of the respondents had moderate stress levels and remaining 10% had high stress levels. The constant need to update one's skills and knowledge, the burden of administrative work, research assignments and competition in the job market could be considered as the reason for the same. Thus, people working in other industries might consider might consider academics sector as the one having relatively lower stress, but in reality this sector is no different from other sectors in terms of stress.

Stress has become an integral part of the modern day professions and professionals have to constantly update their skills to stay relevant. They also need to have a better work- life balance and if they chose to switch to other industries which offer them this, they will have to learn the desired skill sets to sustain and perform there.

6.1 Implications of the Study

It is true that the world is moving towards automation and adoption and dependence on technology is reducing the need for manual intervention. However, human resources still continue to be the most important asset for any organization. They have started to realize the importance of having a productive workforce which can continue to have longer associations with them. Stress affects people at almost every stage of their professional lives and identifying the reasons for their stress and taking corrective actions, wherever possible, can help organizations in developing healthy working environments and dedicated professionals.

This result of this study highlights a serious matter of concern that almost all the respondents were found to have at least moderate levels of stress. In a sample where 90 % of the respondents are less than or equal to 40 years of age, this is really alarming that our majority of the workforce is going through stress and many of the might not be even aware of this fact.

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Organizations must find out ways and systems where people can be given roles and responsibilities according to their skills set and relevant experience and thus, can create a healthy work environment to ensure the desired productivity.

Mental health is a serious issue and it is high time that everybody gives due importance to it.

This study can help people understand the real perception of people working in various industries towards stress. Every industry has its own opportunities and challenges and when if people are planning to make career moves in other industries which they consider lesser stressful as compared to their current jobs, the results of this study can help them overcome their prejudices and can help them choose better career options.

REFERENCES

1. 2019 Cigna 360 Well Being Survey Well & Beyond. https://Wellbeing.Cigna.Com

2. Carsten Kronborg et.al (2012), The association between socio-demographic characteristics and Perceived Stress among residents in a deprived neighbourhood in Denmark , European Journal of Public Health, Volume 22, Issue 6, 1 December 2012, Pages 787–792, https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cks004 3. Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of Perceived Stress. Journal of

Health and Social Behavior, 24, 385-396.

4. Geeta Kumari, Dr. Gaurav Joshi & Dr. K. M. Pandey (2014), Job Stress in Software Companies: A Case Study of HCL Bangalore, India, Global Journal of Computer Science and Technology: C Software & Data Engineering Volume 14 Issue 7 Version 1.0, Double Blind Peer Reviewed International Research Journal Publisher: Global Journals Inc. (USA)Online ISSN: 0975-4172& Print ISSN: 0975-4350.

5. https://www.harishsaras.com/stress-management/shocking-statistics-of-workplace-stress/

6. http://www.uniindia.com/india-s-82-of-population-suffers-from-high-stress-levels- survey/east/news/1544238.html, Wednesday, September 2019, 14:37 hrs

7. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/personal-finance-news/82-indians-bogged-down-by- stress-cigna-360-well-being-study/articleshow/68615097.cms?from=mdr, dated 18/9/2019 at 1.55 pm 8. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-1005-9_479

9. https://qz.com/india/1554496/indian-companies-have-realised-how-bad-employee-stress-is/

10. https://www.businesstoday.in/lifestyle/off-track/indians-suffer-from-stress-

depression/story/280119.html, BusinessToday.In Last Updated: July 10, 2018 | 15:26 IST

11. Lazarus, R. (1993b). Why we should think of stress as a subset of emotion. In Goldberger, L., & Breznitz, S. (1993). Handbook of stress: Theoretical and clinical aspects. New York: Free Press.

12. Naveen Ramesh, Bobby Joseph, Pretesh R Kiran, Jithu Kurian, Abey T Babu Perceived professional stress levels among employees in an Information Technology Company, Bangalore, National Journal of Community Medicine, Volume 7, Issue 4, Apr 2016 Page 231-234.

13. Sami Abdo Radman Al-Dubai et.al, Perceived Stress among Malaysian Railway Workers, Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences Sept-Oct 2016; 23(5): 1-6.

14. Selye, H. (1976). The stress of life. (Revised). Oxford England: Mcgraw Hill.

15. Umer Asgher, Tahir Ali, Riaz Ahmad et.al (2015), A comparative study on organizational stress in South Asian cultures, . Published by Elsevier B.V., 6th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE 2015) and the Affiliated Conferences, AHFE, Procedia Manufacturing 3 ( 2015 ) 3963 – 3970, www.sciencedirect.com

16. Webster-Stratton, C. (1988). Mothers' and fathers' perceptions of child deviance: Roles of parent and child behaviors and parent adjustment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56(6), 909-915.

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7 Table 3

ANOVA Two Way: Showing the interaction effect of Current Industry and Alternate Source of Income on PSS

Source Type III Sum of

Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Corrected Model 2.414^a 7 .345 3.274 .003

Intercept 497.616 1 497.616 4724.785 .000

current_industry 1.955 3 .652 6.187 .001

alternate_source_of_income .003 1 .003 .028 .868

current_industry * alternate_source_of_income .632 3 .211 2.000 .116

Error 17.483 166 .105

Total 845.420 174

Corrected Total 19.897 173

Table 1: Stress Level across demographic Variable

Total Moderate

Stress

High Stress

Age 25-30 43 2 45

30-35 30 0 30

35-40 71 15 86

40 above 13 0 13

Gender Male 79 15 94

Female 78 2 80

Total work 1

experience Below 2 years 15 0 15

2-5 years 41 2 43

5-10 years 32 0 32

10-15 years 51 13 64

Above 15 years 18 2 20

Marital Status Married 122 17 139

Unmarried 35 0 35

Your current

industry Banking 37 5 42

Telecom 39 0 39

IT 35 8 43

academician 46 4 50

Average working hours in a day

in your job(In hours)

Less than 8 38 2 40

8-10 hours 96 2 98

11-12 hours 23 13 36

Do you have an yes alternate source No

of income?

38 2

119 15

Are you a resident of the same city where

you are working?

yes 92 4 96

No 65 13 78

Mean Table 2 : Showing the Mean of Perceived Stress Level among Professionals from Different Sectors

N Mean Std.

Deviation Std.

Error Lower Minimum Maximum

Bound Upper Bound

Banking 42 2.2071 .30952 .04776 2.1107 2.3036 1.80 2.90

Telecom 39 2.0026 .26506 .04244 1.9166 2.0885 1.50 2.50

IT 43 2.2791 .40565 .06186 2.1542 2.4039 1.70 3.00

academician 50 2.2040 .30902 .04370 2.1162 2.2918 1.70 2.80

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8 Table 4

ANOVA Two Way: Showing the interaction effect of Current Industry and Marital Status on PSS

Source Type III Sum

of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

Intercept 456.397 1 456.397 4242.187 .000

Marital_Status .216 1 .216 2.011 .158

Marital_Status *

current_industry .009 2 .004 .041 .959

Error 17.967 167 .108

Total 845.420 174

Table 6

ANOVA Two Way: Showing the interaction effect of Current Industry and Aternate Source of Income on PSS

Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

Intercept 572.692 1 572.692 6764.354 .000

work_experience .782 4 .196 2.310 .060

current_industry .622 3 .207 2.449 .066

work_experience *

Error 13.377 158 .085

Total 845.420 174

Table 5

ANOVA Two Way: Showing the interaction effect of Current Industry and Gender on PSS

Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

Intercept 521.096 1 521.096 5359.386 .000

Gender .197 1 .197 2.027 .156

Gender * current_industry 1.946 3 .649 6.671 .000

Error 16.140 166 .097

Total 845.420 174