ABSTRACT
The
issues of stress and poor health at work have become the focus in several work
places; as these have resulted in many dramatic and sometimes tragic incidents
perpetrated by troubled or disturbed individuals. The problem of stress at work
is slowly emerging as a new challenge requiring attention and sources of
employers and employees.
Taken
collectively, stress could be responsible for a great number of occupational
hazards and health conditions leading to death, illness and incapacitation.
There are considerable costs for the individual employees with regards to these
problems in terms of physical and mental health and the risk of loss of job,
for the organization; these problems result in more direct costs such as staff
turn-over, absenteeism, reduced productivity as well as indirect costs such as
low staff morale, reduced motivation, job satisfaction, creativity and human
resources problems.
This
research work will dwell or examine these basic areas or questions:
1. The
nature of stress at work.
2. How
does work stress affect the individual’s health or wellbeing?
3. How
can these be remedied? Or how can work stress be managed in an organization?
TABLE OF CONTENT
TITLE
PAGE
CERTIFICATION i
DEDICATION ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii
ABSTRACT iv
TABLE
OF CONTENT v-vi
CHAPTER ONE
1.1
INTRODUCTION 1
1.2
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM 3
1.3
PURPOSE OF STUDY 3
1.4
TENTATIVE RESEARCH QUESTIONS 4
1.5
STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS 5
1.6
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY 5
1.7
SCOPE OF STUDY 6
1.8
HISIORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 6
1.9
DEFINITION OF TERMS 9
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0
INTRODUCTION 12
2.1WHAT
IS STRESS? 13
2.2
THEORETICAL MODELS OF STRESS 15
2.3
TYPES OF STRESS 16
2.4
CAUSES OF WORK STRESS 17
2.5
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF WORK STRESS 20
2.6
WHAT ARE STRESSORS? 21
2.7
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRESSORS AND STRESS 22
2.8
PRODUCTIVITY AND STRESS 23
2.8.1
THE EFFECT OF WORK STRESS 24
2.8.2
THE EFFECT OF WORK STRESS ON ORGANISATION 25
2.8.3
WORK STRESS AND HEALTH 25
2.8.4
STRESS, HEALTH AND PRODUCTIVITY 26
2.9
RISK ASSESSMENT: WHAT CAN BE DONE? 27
2.10
ESSENTIAL STEPS IN RISK MANAGEMENT 29
2.11
THE PREVENTION OF WORK STRESS 31
2.12
SOLVING WORK STRESS PROBLEMS 33
2.13
CARING FOR TROUBLED WORKERS 34
2.14
SUMMARY 35
CHAPTER THREE
3.0
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 36
3.1
RESEARCH DESIGN 36
3.2
POPULATION 36
3.3
SAMPLE AND SAMPLE SIZE 37
3.4
SOURCES OF DATA COLLECTION 37
3.4.1
PRIMARY DATA 37
3.4.2
SECONDARY DATA 38
3.5
METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION 38
3.6
RELIABILITY OF INSTRUMENT 39
3.7
VALIDITY OF INSTRUMENT 39
3.8
ADMINISTRATION OF QUESTIONAIRE 39
3.9
DATA ANALYSIS METHOD 39
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA PRESENTATION,
ANALYSIS AND INTERPETATION
4.1 INTRODUCTION 41
4.2 PART
A:- ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL DATA 41
4.3 ANALYSIS
OF PART B 46
4.4 HYPOTHESIS
TESTING 56
5
CHAPTER
FIVE
5.1 SUMMARY
OF FINDINGS 60
5.2 CONCLUSION 61
5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS 62
BIBLIOGRAPHY 63
APPENDIX I 64
APPENDIX II 65
CHAPTER ONE
1.1
INTRODUCTION
Organizations
exist in all areas of life as many people spend a good deal of their lives in
these organizations. Hodge and Anthony (1984) said an organization can be
thought of as a two or more people working co-operatively towards a common
objective or set of objectives. The organization therefore exists to be
productive and contribute to human development and benefits making.
Productivity according to Ikechukwu (1995) is the ratio of useful result
obtained to the resources expended in obtaining them. It is common knowledge
that the productivity of an organization can be improved through greater
incentives such as monthly reward, promotion bonus and a conducive work
environment which will enable employees attain to greater psychological and
physiological needs.
The
term “work” in an employee’s consciousness brings about deteriorating
consequences and the introduction of the above mentioned incentives will check
these deteriorations. In the absence of these incentives to balance
deterioration, work stress sets in; a by-product of work.
The
concept of stress has an established place in a wide range of disciplines:
banking, teaching, politics, law, nursing, criminology and psychotherapy.
According to these disciplines, stress is understood to be the outcome of any
number of innumerable potential stressors that affects an individual. Stress
can be defined as perceptual phenomenon arising from a comparison between the
demand placed on the person and his ability to cope (Cox, 1978). Palmer (1989)
defined stress as the psychological, physiological and behavioral response by
an individual when they perceive a lack of equilibrium between the demand
placed upon them and their ability to meet those demands which over a period of
time leads to ill health. Palmer (1999) simply defined stress as that which
occurs when pressure exceeds your ability to cope. An imbalance to this
mechanism of coping gives rise to the experience of stress and it is important
to understand that stress is neither good nor bad. It could be a positive
stimulus which results in challenging situations and may lead to greater level
of output and creativity.
The
concept of work stress is often confused with challenge but these concepts are
not the same. Challenge energizes us physically and psychologically and
motivates us to learn new skills to master our jobs. When a challenge is met we
feel relaxed and satisfied. Therefore, challenge is an important ingredient for
healthy and productive work. The importance of challenge in our work is
probably what people refer to when they say “a little stress is good for the
body”. Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety reports that too much
stress over a prolonged period can cause negative effects both psychologically
and physiologically. The negative effects can be categorized as internal and
external factors which mitigate against the productivity and profitability of
an organization. The external effects include the availability of adequate
resources, political, economic, sociological and technological environments.
The internal structure of the business is another important factor which is
central to growth, viability and survival of an organization; be it public or
private. The effective acquisition, utilization and maintenance of scarce
resources and motivation of human resources are the contributing factors to the
organization’s productivity. Human resources is so critical to an
organization’s survival such that it has been judged by complex business
environment as the most important resources available to any organization.
This
study is investigating whether work stress actually has any effect on or
reduces productivity level of an organization products and service; and if yes,
what are the consequences. The study investigates the organization productivity
which may mitigate against it when not properly managed by employees, Human
resources and management. This understanding enables employees, Human Resources
and Management to be better positioned to deal with or handle / manage the
stressors. Another common problem in the industry are employees who hold right,
inflexible belief about performing extremely well under all conditions as they
are more likely to suffer from higher level of stress when compared to employees
who holds more helpful, flexible beliefs and standards.
The
‘perfectionist’ is paradoxically less productive and attain lower standard of
work due to their anxiety about failing. However, some employers assume that
stressful working condition are necessary evil, that companies must turn up
pressure on workers and set aside health concerns to remain productive and
profitable in today’s economy, but research findings oppose this belief;
studies shows that stressful working condition are associated with increase
absenteeism, exhaustion increase heart conditions, headache, low morale,
distrust insecurity, dissatisfaction and intentions by workers to quit their
jobs. All of these have a negative effect on the bottom line.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Nigerian
organizations over the years have been saddled with many problems that are
attributable to motivation, productivity, trust confidence and credibility.
These
problems are due to imbalance between the expectations of the employers
(organization) and the employees. The Banking industry will be used as a study
in this project.
Another
issue of concern is the extent to which work stress affect the organization’s
productivity especially with the objective of increasing customer base through
setting of individual and group targets for its employees, working late, not
being able to take time off for health issues; other issues of concern include
very high targets. Long working hours, multiple responsibilities, inabilities
to meet of with these responsibilities leave many employees worried.
1.3 PURPOSE OF STUDY
Many
banks for years design various kinds of developmental strategies aimed at
creating richness for themselves in the industry. These strategies come in form
of new products and services; some of which have start life span and the target
market are high network individual’s e.t.c. These efforts effective as they may
seem are usually not in the best interest of the employees due to the resultant
pressures.
This
study investigates whether stress has any impact on the productivity of an
organization. A lot has been said about the effect of stress on the employee
and their perception of the organization toward their well being. Hence, the
purposes of this research are:
- Finding
out if these are signs and symptoms for stress recognition.
- To
determine when it is necessary to act on probably stress situations
- Ways
or means of identifying stressors.
- Identifying
solutions for controlling or combating stress.
- Evaluating
and monitoring anti-stress intervention.
- To
examine the effect of stress on employees and the productivity of the
organization.
- To
infer conclusion from findings through the gathering, collating, analysis
of relevant data.
- To
proffer recommendations based on the findings of this study.
1.4 TENTATIVE RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
In
order to achieve the objective of the research work, it will attempt to provide
answers to the following questions:
1. What
is Stress?
2. What
is Work Stress?
3. What
Causes Work Stress?
4. What
is the relationship between stress and working condition of the organization
and the conflicting expectation at work?
5. What
role should the management of an organization play in reducing stress?
6. What
strategies should management use to control or eliminate identified stressors?
7. What
is the impact of work stress on the organization and productivity?
8. What
resources are available for managing work stress?
1.5
STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESISThis research work aims at testing
the following hypothesis:
Ho (Null Hypothesis) -
There is no significant relationship between work stress and organization
productivity.
H1 (Alternative
Hypothesis) – There is a significant relationship between work stress and
organization productivity.
1.6
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The
ultimate aim of any organization is to ensure that productivity is optimized.
To ensure this, the organization has to manage its human resources especially
in the area of their working condition, this will enable the employees realize
their potentials as individuals. It is necessary therefore, to see this
research work from two major perspectives namely: the organization and the
employees.
To
the organization, this research work will show that to achieve optimal
productivity, an organization has to give attention to its human resources in
areas such as absenteeism, low-moral, distrust, insecurity, tardiness,
dissatisfaction, exhaustion. The fact is emphasized that is the human factor/
element that will realize the organization’s aim of achieving optimal
productivity, growth and profitability.
To
the employees, this research work will enlighten them of the fact that they are
the key agent s in their organization and their contributions as
individuals/teams/a group in the organization affects the organization in one
way or the other. They have to participate and apply anti-stress intervention
methods that the organization may provide to manage the human resources
challenges which usually arise due to work stress.
1.7
SCOPE OF STUDY
This
research work will concentrate on the effect of work stress on organization
productivity with special interest I the largest group in Platinum and Habib
Bank (Bank PHB)- Centralized shared Services also know as Central Processing
Group (CPG). Centralized Shared Services (CSS) is a centralized Processing
system where most routine operational process are done centrally in a more
efficient and effective manner with optimal cost.
This
research work will be carried out in the Lagos area of the bank where CSS is
located in Oregun part of Ikeja and this will involve the various categories of
staff in the following units of the group:
Cheque
Printing and Maintenance (cheque Management)
Collation
and Outward
Account
Processing
Document
Review
Legal
search
E-Banking
Help
Desk
Audit
Inward
Receipt and Allotment
1.8
HISIORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Bank
PHB, a financial service institution in Nigeria is emerging icon for banking
excellence. It emerged as one of the 24 banks out of 89 following the
government’s banking sector reform in 2005 that saw 90% increase in minimum
regulatory capacity of banks. Bank PHB was the result of the merger between
Plantinum Bank Plc and Habib Bank Plc.
The
bank’s corporate head office is located at Bank PHB Crescent, off Adeyemo
Alakija street, Victoria Island, Lagos,
Nigeria and its largest operation group ; which is the specific area of study-
centralized shared services (CSS) also know as Centralized
Processing Group (CPG) is located at 25 Kimbiat Abiola Way , Oregun, Ikeja,
Lagos state. The CSS concept was borrowed from Axis Bank in India where a
single operations group service all the branches of the bank
from a centralized location. CSS of Bank PHB services its four regions with
over 234 branches nationwide and staff strength of over 6,000, the bank is on
the verge of finalizing full integration of its recently acquired bank- Spring
Bank Plc which currently have about 200 branches and staff strength of 4,050.
Bank
PHB offers a wide range of products and services, in the areas of retail
banking, Electronic banking, Consumer finance, portfolio management, sales and
management, sales of money transfer product among others.
As
earlier mentioned, this research work will dwell on the largest operations
group which serve or has sole responsibity of servicing branches of the bank
nationwide – CSS (also known as CPG). The units housed by the group are:
i.
Cheque printing and maintenance (cheque
management)
ii.
Collation and
iii.
Outward
iv.
Account processing
v.
Inward Receipt and Allotment
vi.
Legal search
vii.
E- Banking
viii.
Help Desk
ix.
Audit
x.
Document Review
THE
CPG CONCEPT
Centralized
processing is a Bank PHB strategic operating tool aimed at positioning the bank
at frontier in;
- Customer
Service
- Processing
of high volume transactions
- High
asset utilization
- Standardization
of deliverables
- Optimizing
earnings
- Staff
growth and development
At
CPG the following operations are carried out:
1. Opening
of all liability accounts
2. Cheque
book processing and dispatch
3. Welcome
kit for new accounts / customers
4. Corporate
search for eligible customers
5. Monthly
bank wide statement printing and dispatch
6. Bank
wide Manager’s cheque (MC) printing and dispatch
7. Credit
and debit card processing and dispatch
8. Internet
Banking configuration and other electronic banking services.
1.9
DEFINITION OF TERMS
1. Stress:
the state that results when the body is faced with pressure which exceeds the
body’s ability to cope.
2. Stressors:
anything that cause stress.
3. Work Stress:
is the harmful physical and emotional response that occurs when there is a poor
match between job demands and the capabilities, resources or needs of the
worker.
4. Challenge:
a new or difficult task that test ones abilities and skills.
5. Productivity:
A measure relating a quantity or quality of output to the input required to
produce it.
6. CSS: Centralized
shared services.
7. CPG: Centralized
Processing Group.
8. AOF: Account Opening
Form.
9. MC: manager’s
Cheque.
10. DC: Debit Cards.
11. IB: Internet
Banking.
12. TB: Telephone
Banking.
13. ICU: Internal Control
Unit.
14. ATM: Automated Teller
Machine.
15. TM: Team Member.
16. HSE
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