Effects of Job Stress on Employees Commitment

ABSTRACT

The study was conducted to examine the effects of job stress on employees commitment with the University of Buea as case study based on the following specific objectives; to examine the effect of absenteeism on employees commitment and to access the effect of depression on employees commitment. The researcher adopted a survey research design while making use of stratified sampling technique where the entire population (support staff) was divided into strata of respondents. The population of the study was made up of the entire management of the University of Buea. A sample size of 70 was considered, primary data was collected by the use of questionnaires. Data was analyzed by statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS), which revealed the relationship between job stress and employee’s commitment. The results showed that the effects of absenteeism due to poor working plan have a negative effect on employee’s commitment while on the effects of depression on employee’s commitment; the most felt effect was on the problems with spouse. The hypothesis results from the Pearson correlation show that there is a positive mild relationship between the variable which shows that the alternate hypothesis that absenteeism has a negative effect on employee’s commitment and depression has a negative effect employee’s commitment is accepted. The study concluded that poor working plan as an effect of absenteeism posed the greatest effect on absenteeism while effects of depression on employee’s commitment, the most felt effect was on the problems with spouse. It was recommended that Stress is the most important issue among managers and employees as such organization should provide grounds for reducing and managing stress.Fair policies, service structure and rules regulation may be implemented to improve engagement and employees commitment.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Stress is one of the most fundamental problems spanning through human endeavor. Nweze (2005) stated that for two and half decades, stress phenomenon has become a topical issue in management development, seminars and workshops in Nigeria. He further stated that the popularity of stress stems from a number of obvious reasons.

The origin of the concept of stress predates antiquity. The term “STRESS “is gotten from a Latin word” STRINGERE” meaning hardship, affliction, or adversity. Job stress has been of great help towards employee commitment. The researchers therefore comes to an agreement that job stress plays a vital role in many organizations (source: Cooper and Cartwright, 1994: Varca, 1999: Ornelas & Kleiner, 2003)

Job stress is the perception of discrepancy between environmental demands and individual capacities to fill these demands (Source: Topper 2007). The effects of job stress on employee commitment which is poor quality of work, promotion, absenteeism due to health problems, decrease in overall performance, loss of memory, depression,  will somehow affects employees’ commitment both negatively and positively.

Stress Definition: It is defined as a reaction of a particular person to a stimulus event (source: Skinner 1995). Stress is also seen as a non-specific response of the body to any demand for change (source: Hans Selye 1936)

Sisk (1977) defined stress as a state of strain, tension or pressure and it is a normal reaction resulting from interaction between the individual and the environment.

Strain means to make great demand on something; tension is a mental or emotional strain that makes natural relaxed behavior   impossible; and pressure is a powerful demand on somebody’s time, attention or energy. Behr and Newman (1978) perceived stress in an occupational setting to mean a condition wherein job related factors interact with workers, to change their psychological and physiological conditions such that the person’s mind and body are forced to deviate from normal functioning. The similarity in the foregoing definitions reveals that there must be an interaction between the environment and the individual before stress can occur. The interaction arises when man is trying to deal with the problems that his environment produced. It could be in his place of work or marriage which makes it impossible for man to relax his nervous system

Employees’ commitment definition: It is defined as a psychological state that characterizes employee’s relationships with the organization, having implications for the decision to continue membership in the organization (source: Meyer and Allen, 1994):

Every job faces stress. Companies and institutions nowadays access the job stress that links to the negative effects affecting employee commitment. This study is to investigate the effects of job stress on employee’s commitment among academic staffs of university of Buea. The scope is based on all the academic staff.  A study was conducted as a source of primary data collection. Statistical techniques were used and data analyzed, results proved that there is an impact of job stress on employees’commitment. When the stress level has reached a particular point without managerial concern for solution, the employee commitment will be reduced, these situations is a call for concern for top management to affect stress to increase employee commitment. Management needs to take measures to minimize the negative effects of job stress (Source: Ehijiele Ekienabor :Igbinedion university) Keywords: Job related stress, Employees commitment, Stress

1.2 Problem statement

Stress could be considered as one of the irritating administrative problems that continue to pose threat to the goal attainment of administrative staff of tertiary institutions. Stress phenomenon has become an important area of research in medicine and psychology, and in management

The stress in the job makes employees feel less important and makes the   commitment to be in a low state, due to that fact, employees can’t focus on their jobs and thus leading to low commitment (Cordes and Dougherty1993). The factors associated to job stress such as ill health, emotional exhaustion, low productivity makes employees not to be capable of achieving their commitment in the organization. Employee’s commitment greatly influences job stress. Tseng (2001) stated that hi-tech workers feel more stressful than traditional industries. This study is important because if the problem is not resolved, it may cause problems in the future to the employees, so it is important to to conduct research to search for the main factors leading to job stress and to look for means to overcome those problems, thus aims to find out the effects and relationship of job stress on employee commitment (Electronic manufacturing at Kuntan, Pahan

This is of particular concern as the leading cause of sickness and can be reduced by the adoption of practices that will help alleviate stress for administrative staff of tertiary institutions. People attempt to manage their stress conditions and their strategies differ from person to person and situation to situation.

1.3 Objectives of the study

1.3.1 Main objective

The main objective of this study is to find out the effect of work stress on employees commitment in the UNIVERSITY OF BUEA

1.3.2 Specific objectives

To examine the effect of absenteeism on employees commitment

To access the effect of depression on employees commitment

1.4 Hypothesis

H1: Absenteeism has a negative effect on employee’s commitment

H2: Depression has a negative effect employee’s commitment

FURTHER READING: MANAGEMENT PROJECT TOPICS WITH MATERIALS