A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY ON OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AND COPING MECHANISM AMONG BANK EMPLOYEES IN PERAMBALUR DISTRICT
| Main Authors: | A. Deeba, Dr. G. John |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article Journal |
| Terbitan: |
, 2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
https://zenodo.org/record/1288740 |
Daftar Isi:
- Every human being has, without exception, experienced the feeling of distress, anxiety or uncertainty, which usually accompanies a difficult situation. In most cases, stress occurs in situations when people are in danger or facing a problem. Nevertheless, in contemporary societies, Stress is commonly experienced as a part of everyday life, either to a smaller or a larger extent. Sarafino (1994) defined Stress as a condition that occurs when the transaction between the person and the environment makes him/ her perceive a difference true or not-between the demands of the situation and the resources of biological, psychological and social systems. In contemporary societies the sources of stress can be found in the family, educational or occupational context, in the natural and social environment and in individual traits and personal factors as well. According to Rothman (2008) Occupational stress can be related to poor working conditions, high workload, involuntary overtime, inflexible working hours, excessive demands, very frequent changes or monotony. In addition, role vagueness, role conflict and degree of responsibility are likely to become sources of stress for an organization’s employees (Jamal, 1990; Jawahar et al., 2007). Furthermore, an employee’s career evolution and an organization’s structure and management can be possible sources of occupational stress. More specifically, an employee’s personal effort for career advancement, the lack of job security and the process of job performance evaluation are likely to affect his/ her level of occupational stress (Cavanaugh et al., 2000), while the lack of the feeling of belonging to an organization and the lack of participation opportunities are likely to cause occupational stress and burnout (Baltzer et al., 2011). ‘Coping’ is proposed as the key to people maintaining well-being and satisfactory performance. Recent definitions view stress as arising from the interaction between person and situation (Furnham, 1997), with a prominent model being that of Lazarus and Folkman (1984) and subsequent developments (Lazarus, 1991, 1999). This model suggests that the potentially stressful employee–work environment relationship is mediated by two factors - cognitive appraisal and coping - and that these factors influence immediate and longer-term outcomes. In the changing workplace, employees are continually evaluating what is going on and what the significance for them is. They assess whether changes have any relevance for their well-being, and if so, in what ways. Such evaluations are of two kinds: A primary appraisal: What will I gain? What will I lose? What are the potential benefits or harm to me? Is what is happening irrelevant, can I ignore it? A secondary appraisal asks: What can I do to overcome or prevent the negative effects? What can I do to improve my prospects for benefiting from change? What coping options might be worth adopting? What are the likely consequences? Will I accomplish what I want to achieve? In addition, employees reappraise the outcomes that have been achieved as a result of their coping strategies within a changing environment, learn of the consequences and make further appraisals. Coping is seen, therefore, as constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person. (Lazarus and Folkman 1984: Moreover, there are two functions of coping - dealing with a problem that has arisen (problem-focused coping) and regulating associated emotions (emotion- focused coping). Different coping approaches involve regulating emotions in a positive or negative way (Latack and Havolic, 1992; Kahn and Cooper, 1993).One example of problem-focused coping is ‘innovative coping’ (Bruce and West, 1996). Innovative coping is an outwardly-directed form of coping strategy. The implication is that people can change, in an active way, an aspect of a situation that is seen as stressful. This means that employees can lead, either individually or as teams, and achieve unit/department goals more effectively, so the organization can develop and function effectively. In this light it is interesting to learn perceived occupational stress by the employees and the coping mechanism adopted by them. This research study is geared towards the understanding of the various factors responsible for stress among bank employees and to know the prevailing level of coping mechanism.