The Impact of Job Stress on Employee Job Satisfaction A Study on Telecommunication Sector of Pakistan

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the impact of job stress on employee job satisfaction. A sample of 134 employees from the telecom sector from Pakistan was used for this analysis. Job stress has been measured by conflict at work, workload and physical environment. Prior study indicate that the stressor workload, role conflict, physical environment negatively affect the employee job satisfaction. This study results revealed that stress is negatively related to employee's job satisfaction which support Caplan (1991) and Keller (1975) result. This study reinforces the importance of employee job satisfaction which is essential for successful firm in current era. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Headnote

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the impact of job stress on employee job satisfaction. A sample of 134 employees from the telecom sector from Pakistan was used for this analysis. Job stress has been measured by conflict at work, workload and physical environment. Prior study indicate that the stressor workload, role conflict, physical environment negatively affect the employee job satisfaction. This study results revealed that stress is negatively related to employee's job satisfaction which support Caplan (1991) and Keller (1975) result. This study reinforces the importance of employee job satisfaction which is essential for successful firm in current era.

Key words: Job stress, conflict at work, workload, physical environment, employee job satisfaction.

Introduction

The term stress is basically from physical science where it means the force placed upon an object to cause damage, bending, or breaking. In case of human beings stress is often used to describe the body's responses to demands placed upon it, whether these demands are favorable or unfavorable. Anything that causes stress is called a stressor. "Stress is a condition which happens when one realizes the pressure on them or requirements of situation are wider than they can handle, and if these requirements are huge and continue for a long period of time without any interval, mental, physical or behavioral problems may occur."

Job stress is one of the most important workplace health risk for employees in developed and developing countries (Paul, 2002; Danna and Griffin, 2002). There are a number of workplace factors, called job stressors that make jobs stressful and difficult for number of employees in services as well as manufacturing industries. Additional stressors concern interpersonal relationships at work, such as conflicts with the behavior of supervisors, conflicts with colleagues, conflicts with subordinates and conflicts with management policies (Paul, 2002). Stress is an environmental situation in which a person is required to perform the tasks that threatens to exceed the person's ability and resources for meeting it, under conditions where he or she expects a large difference in the rewards from meeting the demand versus not meeting it (Mc Grath, 1976). In work life extreme stress is so aversive to employees that they will try to avoid it by withdrawing either psychologically (disinterest or lack of involvement in the job etc.), physically (frequent late coming, absenteeism, laziness etc.) or by leaving the job entirely (Beehr and Newman, 1978).

Job satisfaction has been the most frequently investigated variable in organizational behavior (Spector, 1997). Job satisfaction means how much people feel positive about their job and the different of their jobs (Spector, 1997). Low job satisfaction can be an important indicator of decrease in employee production and can result in behavior such as absenteeism (Martin & Miller, 1986) and turnover intentions (Dupre & Day, 2007). The previous studies suggest that higher level of job stress causes less job satisfaction (K. Chandraiah, S.C. Agrawal, P. Marimuthu & N. Manoharan 2003).

The telecom sector of Pakistan is one of the growing sectors of economy. The total telecom sector revenue reached at Rs. 357.7 billion in the FY2009-10 compared to Rs.333 billion the last year and 30.125% growth as compared to last year 28.159%(PTA- Annual Report 2009- 10). Along with the growth competition has also increased. Currently, the telecom sector is undergoing intense competition among the six mobile operators, one major fixed-line operator and few small fixed-line operators (Competitive support fund, Ministry of finance & USAID). So there is a need to find the impact of job stress on job satisfaction in telecommunication sector of Pakistan. We hope that finding of this study will add value in research in terms of sample from a developing world country like Pakistan.

Research Question: What is the impact of job stress on employee's job satisfaction?

Literature Review

Several studies have tried to determine the link between stress and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction and job stress are the two hot focuses in human resource management researches. The stress itself will be affected by number of stressors. Amongst some important factors causing stress one is role conflict. It has a significant negative impact on job satisfaction. (David Yong Gun Fie, Syed Shah Alam, Zaini Abdullah and Nilufar Ahsan, 2009). Workload and professional uncertainty affects employee job satisfaction negatively. (Laura McCann, Carmel M. Hughes, Colin G. Adair and Chris Cardwell, 2009).

Role conflict is important job stressor that is faced due to the multiple roles (Butler & Constantine, 2005). Role conflict may start when two or more concurrent and unsuited expectations exist in such a way that in agreement with a given role compromises fulfilling other roles (Drury, 1984; Thompson & Powers, 1983). Role conflict decreases job satisfaction among both men and women (Coverman 1989). Work role conflict has a greater impact on job satisfaction in those workers who have a high centrality of the family role (Carlson and Kacmar, 2000). Role conflict involves contradiction in expectations of an employee sales position. This may occur when a sales person is given a variety of contrary orders or is given a range of responsibilities that cannot be completed all together (Brashear et al., 2003, p. 973).

Role conflict is a stressor that affects job satisfaction (Caplan & Jones 1975 and Hall & Gordon 1973). Role conflict is generally defined as the simultaneous occurrence of two or more sets of pressures, such that compliance with one would make compliance with the other more difficult (House and Rizzo, 1972; Kahn et al., 1964; Pandey and Kumar, 1997). Moreover a study on physical education teachers in Greece explored inverse relationship between role conflicts on the one hand, and job satisfaction on the other (Athanasios Koustelios, Nicholas Theodorakis and Dimitris Goulimaris, 2004). A study of professional accountants revealed that role conflict was associated with low job satisfaction and high propensity to leave. (Steven S. Lui, Hang-Yue Ngo, Anita Wing-Ngar Tsang, 2010).

Physical environment can be defined in terms of lightening, noise, temperature, humidity, clean air, air circulation and exposure to dangerous substances (National Institute of occupational safety and health, division of behavioral and biomedical science, motivation and stress research section Cincinnati, Ohio.Fifty-four percent of employees and 52% of HR professionals indicated that feeling safe in the work environment was very important to employee job satisfaction. Female employees considered feeling safe in the workplace an especially important job satisfaction factor compared with male workers (Survey report SHRM, 2009). Having a window, or daylight within 15 ft (5 m), strongly improves satisfaction with lighting and increasing workstation size also improves satisfaction with privacy (Veitch J.A, Charles K.E, Newsham G.R, Marquardt C.J.G & Geerts J 2003). A study of managers of Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong showed that the physical work environment is one of the important determinants of job satisfaction in that industry (Lam et al. 2001). A study of 360 technical supervisors showed that the employees who perceive their physical work environment adequate are more satisfied with their jobs (A.K. Srivastava, 2008).

Job stress is due to organizational aspects, long work hours, lack of organizational support and organizational change (Davey, et al., 2001), lack of support from supervisors and colleagues, and conflict with demands and pressures (Leka, et al.,2004). A study of naval personnel of Malaysia examined the relationship between stress and job satisfaction. Results revealed that occupational stress was negatively associated with eight job satisfaction (Nor Liyana Mohd Bokti and Mansor Abu Talib, 2009). As stress affects the performance of the people working in any type of organization, same is the case with air force military pilots. According to a study of air force pilots of Iran job stress reduces job satisfaction. (Dr Khodabakhsh Ahmadi and Kolivand Alireza, 2007). Occupational stress has a direct negative effect on job satisfaction (Noordin Yahaya, Azizi Yahaya, Farhana Amat Tamyes, Jasmi Ismail & Saini Jaalam 2010).

In general, job stress has been viewed as a predecessor of job satisfaction, and the two constructs have been treated as related yet distinct (Stanton, Bachiochi, Robie, Perez, & Smith, 2002). According to Stamps & Piedmonte (1986) job satisfaction has been found significant relationship with job stress. Organization factors such as workload and working condition are negatively related with job satisfaction (Vinokur-Kaplan1991). The lack of satisfaction can be a source of stress, while high satisfaction can lighten the effects of stress it means that both of job stress and job satisfaction are interrelated (Fletcher & Payne 1980).

Theoretical Framework:

Independent Variable: Job Stress

Dependent Variable: Employee Job Satisfaction

Hypothesis

H1: Job stress is negatively affects employee job satisfaction

Methodology

Sample

This study is a cross sectional field survey in design and of the 200 questionnaire distributed in employees of telecom sector organizations of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, 139 questionnaires were yielded. Five questionnaires out of 139 were disqualified due to in complete. The sample consists of 60% male and40% female. The70% respondents are single and 30%. The 90% of employees are under category of 5 years experience.10% respondents have more than 5 year experience .19% of respondents are intermediate, 45 % bachelors and 36 % master.

Instruments

The satisfaction has been measured by 20 item scale short form of 5 item likert scale of Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ). While National Institute Occupational Safety and Health, Ohio (NOISH) job stress questionnaire has been used to measure job satisfaction. It consists of three sections to measure three facets of stress taken in this study. The reliability score (cronbach's alpha) of conflict at work was 0.496, Workload 0.675 and physical environment 0.46. On the other hand reliability score of MSQ is 0.87.

Results

In Table 1 of model summery value of R square is 0.312 depicting that employee job satisfaction in explained by 31.20% through variation in job stress.

In Table 2 model of fitness (ANOVA) value of F 63.13% at a significance level of 0.000 is giving model a god fit. In Table 3 T-statistics shows that value of the constant is 5.45 with P<0.05 while coefficient of stress (beta) is -0.599 with P<0.05. at a statistically significant level of 0.000 supporting our H1 that job stress is negatively related with employee job satisfaction.

Conclusion

Individuals under excessive stress tend to find their jobs less satisfying. Some of their intrinsic or extrinsic needs may be thwarted or not met sufficiently. As per many studies in the literature (Caplan 1991; Keller, 1975), the findings of the present study also reveal the same. The subjects with lower job satisfaction were found to experience more stress in the form of workload, role conflict and physical environment compared to those with higher job satisfaction. Due to the intense competition in telecom industry, organizations are exerting more and more pressure on employees in order to compete each other and contradicting demands, excessive workload and physical working conditions causes job stress that decreases employee's job satisfaction.

Limitations

Firstly data has been collected through questionnaire; cross sectional nature of the study is the major limitation. Second, we have assumed only role conflict, workload and physical environment as a predictor of employee job satisfaction, though many other factors too invariably accounts for employee job satisfaction. Caution should be made that findings of this preliminary study should not be generalized to the larger population due to its small sample size. A bigger sample would be needed to represent the general population. Further research is necessary to explore deeper into the causes of stress and its effect on employees job satisfaction in telecom sector of Pakistan.

References

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