jurnal stress1

JOB STRESS PHENOMENON AMONG ADMINISTRATION EMPLOYEE AT BINA DARMA UNIVERSITY PALEMBANG

Dina Mellita

Lecturer at Universitas Bina Darma

Jalan Jenderal Ahmad Yani No.12, Palembang

Pos-el: dmellita@yahoo.com

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Abstract:This study conducted to asses the job stress phenomenon of administration employee at Bina darma university Palembang.The determinants of job stress that have been examined under this study measured by ‘Job Stress Questionaire JSQ” proposed by Caplan et al (1975) and Sahu and Gole (2008 ) include management role, relationship with other, workload pressure, homework interface, role ambiguity and performance pressure. Within census to 47 administration employee the result shows that administration employee of Bina darma University considered high. By using descriptive analysis also shows that respondents have problem at workload pressure and performace pressure indicators. From the study, it was conducted that administration employee lack of Lack of supervisory support presented that administration employee are not getting adequate support from superiors in their work accomplishment.

Keywords: Job stress, management role, relationship with other, workload pressure, homework interface, role ambiguity and performance pressure

Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan fenomena stress kerja yang dihadapi pegawai administrasi Universitas Bina Darma Palembang. Indikator variabel stress kerja pada penelitian ini adalah peran manajemen (management role), hubungan kerja di kantor (relationship with other), beban kerja (workload pressure), gangguan di rumah (homework interface), ambiguitas peran (role ambiguity), tekanan kinerja (performance pressure). Dengan menggunakan metode statistik deskriptifmelalui mean, standar deviasi pegawai administrasi Universitas Bina Darma memiliki masalah pada beban kerja dan kurangnya dukungan dari pihak atasan dan rekan kerja dalam mengerjakan tugas-tugas yang diberikan. Untuk itu peran pihak manajemen sangat diperlukan untuk mengadakan program-progam untuk mengelola stress kerja yang dihadapi pekerjanya.

Kata kunci: stress kerja, management role, relationship with other, workload pressure, homework interface, role ambiguity and performance pressure

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A. Introduction

In workplace the productivity can be increase in a variety of ways. A comfortable employee, the theory maintains, can produce more than a counterpart who struggles through the day. A comfortable working environment can do more than make employee happy, it can improve productivity as well. In fact, some studies clain that measures such as raising workplace temperature can have drastic effect on the office productivity.

Job stress is a major hazard for many workers. Increased workloads, downsizing, overtime, hostile work environments, andshiftwork are just a few of the many causes of stressful working conditions. This factsheet addresses some of the causes of workplace stress and solutions for change (Shuttleworth, 2004).

Stress has been defined in different ways over years. Originally, it was conceived as pressure from the environment, then as strain within the person. The generally accepted definition today is one of the interactions between the sistuation and the individual. It is the psychological and physical state that result when the resources of the individual are not sufficient to cope with the demands and pressures of the situation. Thus, stress is more likely in some situation than others in some individual than others (Michie, 2002).

Job (Occupational, work or workplace) stress has become one of the most serious health issues in the modern world (Lu et al., 2003, 479), as it occurs in any job and is even more present than decades ago. Namely, the world of work differs considerably from the working environment of 30 years ago: longer hours at work are not unusual, frequent changes in culture and structure are often cited, as well as the loss of lifetime career paths (Cooper & Locke, 2000 in Fotinatos-Ventouratos & Cooper 2005), which all leads to greater presence and levels of stress.

Job stress, in particular, is the inability to cope with the pressures in a job (Rees, 1997), because of a poor fit between someone’s abilities and his/her work requirements and conditions (Holmlund-Rytkönen & Strandvik, 2005). It is a mental and physical condition which affects an individual’s productivity, effectiveness, personal health and quality of work (Comish & Swindle, 1994, 26).

Previous studies reveal that occupational stress among educators has been researched for a number of decades. As a result of a drastically changed working environment in the teaching profession, stress as a phenomenon has also received attention. Since valuable studies have been undertaken on certain aspects of educator stress, this article attempts to provide an overview of the occurrence of stress among educators. Most of the studies focusing on models of occupational stress and identifies key factors that may have an impact on occupational stress among educators.

Among life situations, the workplace stands out as a potentially important source of stress purely because of the amount of time that is spent in this setting (Erkutlu & Chafra, 2006, 287). Over the years, a large number of workplace stressors of varying degrees of gravity have been identified.

Management role of an organization is one of the aspects that affect work-related stress among workers (Alexandros-Stamatios et. al., 2003).Workers in an organization can face occupational stressthrough the role stress that the management gave. Role stress means anything about an organizational role that produces adverse consequences for the individual (Kahn and Quinn, 1970). Management will have their own role that stands as their related. Role related are concerned with how individuals perceive the expectations other have of them and includes role ambiguity and role conflict (Alexandros-Stamatios et. al., 2003).

Family and work are inter-related and interdependent to the extent that experiences in one area affect the quality of life in the other (Sarantakos, 1996). Home-work interface can be known as the overlap between work and home; the two way relationship involves the source of stress at work affecting home life and vice versa affects of seafaring on home life, demands from work at home, no support from home, absent of stability in home life. It asks about whether home problems are brought to work and work has a negative impact on home life (Alexandros-Stamatios G.A et al., 2003). For example, it questions whether the workers have to take work home, or inability to forget about work when the individual is at home. Home-work interface is important for the workers to reduce the level of work-related stress. According to Lasky (1995) demands associated with family and finances can be a major source of ‘extra-organisational’ stress that can complicate, or even precipitate, work place stress. Russo & Vitaliano (1995) argued that the occurrence of stressors in the workplace either immediately following a period of chronic stress at home, or in conjunction with other major life stressors, is likely to have a marked impact on outcome.

Several studies have highlighted the deleterious consequences of high workloads or work overload. According to Wilkes et al. (1998) work overloads and time constraints were significant contributors to work stress among community nurses. Workload stress can be defined as reluctance to come to work and a feeling of constant pressure (i.e. no effort is enough) accompanied by the general physiological, psychological, and behavioral stress symptoms (Division of Human Resource, 2000). European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 8, Number 1 (2009) Al-Aameri AS. (2003) has mentioned in his studies that one of the six factors of occupational stress is pressure originating from workload. Alexandros-Stamatios G.A. et al. (2003) also argued that “factors intrinsic to the job” means explore workload, variety of tasks and rates of pay.

Rapidly changing global scene is increasing the pressure of workforce to perform maximum output and enhance competitiveness. Indeed, to perform better to their job, there is a requirement for workers to perform multiple tasks in the workplace to keep abreast of changing technologies (Cascio, 1995; Quick, 1997). The ultimate results of this pressure have been found to one of the important factors influencing job stress in their work (Cahn et al., 2000). A study in UK indicated that the majority of the workers were unhappy with the current culture where they were required to work extended hours and cope with large workloads while simultaneously meeting production targets and deadlines (Townley, 2000).

Role ambiguity is another aspect that affects job stress in the workplace. According to Beehr et al. (1976), Cordes & Dougherty (1993), Cooper (1991), Dyer & Quine (1998) and Ursprung (1986) role ambibuity exists when an individual lacks information about the requirements of his or her role, how those role requirements are to be met, and the evaluative procedures available to ensure that the role is being performed successfully. Jackson & Schuler (1985) and Muchinsky (1997) studies found role ambiguity to lead to such negative outcomes as reduces confidence, a sense of hopelessness, anxiety, and depression.

The increasing number of higher education in Palembang has increase tremendously for the past few years. Due to increasing number of higher education in Palembang, university academic staff may face more problems in their job as the managements are facing competitive pressure from other higher education. Almost higher education are now setting new goal to compete with other universities as well as their academic are involving with the organization goal. This may causes the university administration staffs to face plenty of stress and therefore affect their satisfaction and even their physical or mental health.

This study is design to describe job stress phenomenon among administration employee at Bina Darma University

B. Method Of Study

This research is conducted to describes the level of job stress among staff the higher education employee especially at Bina Darma University Palembang. The case study applied in this research. The method chosen to address job stress phenomenon among administration staff of Bina darma University was a questionnaire. Due to number of population, this study conducted on 47 subject belonging to administration staff at Bina Darma University. In this study, the author used primary sources to analyze the data gathered.

The questionnaire was design using combination of quantitative and qualitative question and comprised two distinct section. Section A was design to obtain specific details about stress indicator that was developed by researcher based on the literature review on the relevant topic, there are:

1.Management Role (MR)

2.Relationship with others (RO)

3.Workload Pressure (WP)

4.Homework Interface (HI)

5.Role Ambiguity (RA)

6.Performance Pressure (PP)

Section B was designed to obtain specific details about the respondent/employers or Demographic Information Questionaire (DIG). The variables listed in this section are age group, gender, level of education, years of experience. The study employs the scientific method of using questionnaire to solicit data from respondents. The sampling method that’s used in this research was sensus method. Descriptive statistics will be applied on the data obtained.

To analyse the data, the researcher using descriptive analysis. Descriptive analysis refers to the transformation of raw data that would provide information to describe a set of factors in a situation that will make them easy to understand and interpret. This analysis will be given information through the frequency distribution , central tendency and the dispersion.

D. Survey Result And Interpretation

This section examines result of the study, which is analyses using descriptive statistics. In descriptive statistics, the author explore the data to understand the nature and characteristics of the data.

Table 2

Respondent profiles

Source: data processed by researcher

From the Table 2 above, vast majority of the respondents 41 or 87.23 per cent) were in the category of age group between 31 – 40 years.This finding indicates that the majority of them were still in the low management level. From the respondent’s profiles, education level played an important role in the background of the respondent. In this level, almost 60 per cent have midlle education qualification.

The validity of the items shows the correlation mare than 0,244 (r tes > r table). From the table 3 it is shown that all the validity of the item consider valid. The item that highest correlation coefficient is role ambiguity.

Table 3

Summary of Validity Test

Source: data processed by researcher

The internal reliability of the items was verified by computing the cronbaach’s alpha. It is suggested that minimum alpha of 0,6 sifficed for the early stage of research. The cronbach alpha estimated for management role was 0,716, relationship with others 0,809, workload pressure scale was 0,877, homework interface was 0,739, role ambiguity was 0,705, performance pressure was 0,891 and overall job stress scale was 0,790. As the cronbach alpha in this studywere all much higher than 0,6, the construct were therefore deemed to have adequity reliability.

Table 4

Summary of Reliability Test

Source: data processed by researcher

Table 5shows the mean value of indicators that contributed to stress in different departments. Overall mean for all indicator was 3,90. It is indicate that job stress level among administration staff at bina Darma University is consider high. Workload and performance pressure are identified as the major factors causing stress having mean value 4,68 and 4,23 respectively. Workload as the main source of job stress for administration staff in Bina darma university.

Table 5

Summary of Job Stress

Source: data processed by researcher

It is increasingly important that faculty members perform administrative duties to promote the efficient operation of schools. As a consequence, job stress represents a key contributor to whether such schools operate successfully. Thus, the job stress experienced by academic heads constitutes an important and timely topic. Due to competitive environment in education industry it is important that faculty members perform administrative duties to promote the efficient operation of university. As a consequence, administratve employee as a key contributor to whether such university operate successfully. Thus, this result may cause due to the nature of administrative employee which is dealing with heavy workload and long hour.

Stress produces a range of undesirable, expensive, and debilitating consequences (Ross, 2005), which affect both individuals and organizations. In organizational setting, stress is nowadays becoming a major contributor to health and performance problems of individuals, and unwanted occurrences and costs for organizations.

Consequences of occupational stress can be grouped into those on individual and those on organizational level. On the individual level, there are three main subgroups of strains (Blake et al, 1996):

2)Unwanted feelings and behaviors – such as job dissatisfaction, lower motivation, low employee morale, less organizational commitment, lowered overall quality of work life, absenteeism, turnover, intention to leave the job, lower productivity, decreased quantity and quality of work, inability to make

3)sound decisions, more theft, sabotage and work stoppage, occupational burnout, alienation, and increased smoking and alcohol intake.

4)Physiological diseases (poor physical health) – such as increased blood pressure and pulse rate, cardiovascular diseases, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, insomnia, headaches, infections, skin problems, suppressed immune system, injuries, and fatigue.

5)Psychological diseases (poor emotional (mental) health) – psychological distress, depression, anxiousness, passiveness/aggressiveness, boredom, lose of self-confidence and self-esteem, lose of concentration, feelings of futility, impulsiveness and disregarding of social norms and values, dissatisfaction with job and live, losing of contact with reality, and emotional fatigue.

It is also demonstrate that mean of relationship with others is consider low. This indicates that administration employee are not getting adequate support from the superior in their work accomplishment and dissemination of functional duties. Lower the level support employee obtained from the organisation higher the level of stress experienced by the employees at work.

The highest scale of stress level will have some consequences on organizational level. As Chen et.al (2006) summarize consequences of job stress on the organizational level grouped into two major subgroups:

1)Organizational symptoms – such as discontent and poor morale among the workforce, performance/productivity losses, low quality products and services, poorer relationships with clients, suppliers, partners and regulatory authorities, losing customers, bad publicity, damage to the corporate image and reputation, missed opportunities, disruption to production, high accident and mistakes rates,high labor turnover, loss of valuable staff, increased sick-leave, permanent vacancies, premature retirement, diminished cooperation, poor internal communications, more internal conflicts, and dysfunctional workplace climate.

2)Organizational costs – such as costs of reduced performance/productivity (lack of added value to product and/or service), high replacement costs in connection with labor turnover (increase in recruitment, training and retraining costs), increased sick pay, increased health-care costs and disability payments, higher grievance and litigation/compensation costs, and costs of equipment damage.

As evident from the above, consequences of occupational stress, both on individual and organizational level, are a real cost to organizations. Because of its significant economic implications, stress is not only a huge burden (Ben-Bakr et al., 1995), but one of the fastest growing concerns to contemporary organizations, especially given the high levels of competition and environmental turbulence, which do not allow organizations to bear costs such as those caused by stress (McHugh, 1993).

However, costs which are a consequence of stress are hardly ever assessed or calculated either in human or financial terms. Despite the apparent need for measuring costs of stress, it seems that to date relatively limited number of organizations estimated those enormous indirect costs.

Finally, it is important to stress that contrary to popular belief, stress can be associated with both pleasant and unpleasant events, and only becomes problematic when it remains unresolved (Erkutlu & Chafra, 2006, 287). In other words, one could argue that not all stress is dysfunctional and that, in fact, stress is not inherently bad, while a limited amount of stress combined with appropriate responses actually can benefit both the individual and the organization (Chusmir & Franks, 1988, 70). Namely, as low and high stress predict poor performance, and moderate stress predicts maximum performance (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908 in Sharpley et al., 1996), the total elimination of stress should not be aimed at.

E. Conclusion

The result tend to suggest that administration employee of Bina Darma University share a basic commitment to the job stress management. Clearly from the data, it si conclude that:

1)Over all job stress phenomenon among administration employee at Bina Darma University considered high. This means, employee have some problem in stress in workplace especially in workload pressure and performance pressure.

2)This study indicates that the employee have problem with relationship with other.Lack of supervisory support presented that administration employee are not getting adequate support from superiors in their work accomplishment

F. Recommendation

The present findings indicate that employee of Bina darma University reported a relative higher stress due to high on workload pressure and performance pressure. This suggest that management has this key issues in maintain stress level of the employee.

To alleviate the negative consequences of job stress administration employee at Bina darma University, policy maker, practicioner and organisational management must concern to the area that have lowest value, which are workload pressure, performance pressure and relationship with other.

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