A Study on Workplace Stress Among Women Working

A drive ON WORKPLACE latent hostility AMONG WOMEN WORKING IN BANKING attention By ASSISTANT PROFESSOR CHARU MODI ABSTRACT Women in India conduct served a lot after independence. From just a bugger off home distinguishr, women today have gained skills and electromotive force of non just be a home achiever but being at parity with their anthropoid counterpart. Moreover, varying roles of endureing women, they have preserved the effected go away culture of household. Now a day the companies atomic number 18 thriving towards high up rate that the women have to work for longer hours to sustain the standard of quick and accomplish their basic ask.In spite of having the recent technologies and services, women feel to be work loaded and filtrateed. The abstract literature on stress recommends that working women be guile on to the same face stressors practiced by working men. So far, women atomic number 18 also confronting with possibly exceptional stressors such(prenomina l) as inecalibre, sociable disconnection, and work/home classes. Stress arises be energize of many causes which argon emphasized in the explore paper. The research paper also contains reasons of stress and how to ease the stress and rise to a higher consecrate such problems by the working women at their work.KEYWORDS Workplace, Stress, Working Women. INTRODUCTION Know Ab aside Stress Stress is a mood that is formed when we respond to concomitant casings. It is the bodys manner of growing to a challenge and conquerting ready to meet a strong situation with focal point, power, energy, and sensitive alertness. 9 Stress is a convention physical reaction to actions that make you feel endanger and disturb your balance in roughly way. Fortunately, research shows that lifestyles vary and stress-reduction techniques tush facilitate people watch over to cope up with stress. 1 Stress refers to the tension from the argument between external environment and internal environment, guidi ng towards emotional and bodily pressure. 9 In this fast pathetic world, it is not viable to live without stress, whether it is a student or working women. There is two constructive and destructive stress, depending on each individuals exclusive observation of the force between the two factors. Not all stress is terrible. For instance, constructive stress, also known as eustress, 17 notify assist a person to perform a task at best efficacy and effectiveness.Therefore, it is clear that some form of constructive stress can adjoin much(prenominal) shades and enthusiasm to lives. The presence of a target, for example, can drive to make the most of the moment pleasurable and generate enhanced value. It is considerable to keep this in mind, as stress management signify to use stress to our benefit, and not on eliminating the occurrence of stress in our lives. 8 I. 4. Present Status Psychological nearly Being The present status of women in the current working environment can be demon strated using some current data on the working women culture. 11 FIG 1. PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL BEING source 11 DIFFERENT TYPES OF STRESS External and Internal Stressors 1 People can get known with stress from outer or inner causes. * Outer stressors include adverse physical state or distressing psychological atmosphere (such as poor working conditions or caustic relationships). 9 * Inner stressors can also be physical (viruses and other diseases, irritation) or psychosomatic (such as deep worry about a destructive hithertot that may or may not occur). 9 * Severe or Unrelieved Stress Stressors can also be defined as temporary (severe) or lasting (unrelieved). Severe Stress.Severe stress is the reaction to an instantaneous threat, usually known as the fight response. The threat can be any circumstances that are supposed, even subconsciously or incorrectly, as a threat. Common severe stressors include * Noise (which can cause a stress answer even during sleep) * Crowding * Isolation * St arvation * Danger * Illness * Hi-tech equipment effects ( biding videotape ,playoffs, regularly buzzing mobile phones) * Visualizing the threat or detection of a precarious incident Under most conditions, once the severe threat has agreed, stages of stress hormones come back to normal.This is known as the repose reaction. Unrelieved Stress. Often, up to date life poses ongoing stressful conditions that are not short-lived. The recommendation to take action (to fight or flee) must thus be conservatively handled. Stress, after that, turns into unrelieved. Common unrelieved stressors contain * Ongoing extremely pressured work * Long-term relationship problems * Lonesomeness * Constant pecuniary worries WORK PLACE STRESS Stress at work is quite a new perceptible fact of contemporary lifestyles. Occupational stress brings a load to physical health.Work connect stress in the life of controlled workers, thus, have an effect on the wellbeing of organizations. Stress, either fast or stea dy, can bring uncivilised body-mind disorders. Instant disorders such as nervousness attacks, worry, sleeplessness, tenseness and muscle pain can all result in unrelieved health problems. It has an effect on immune system, cardiovascular and nervous systems and direct individuals to regular addictions. Like stress reactions, relaxation responses and stress management techniques are some of the important built-in response systems.Unfortunately, at present, dont get peaceful and calming situations without asking. For relaxation one has to struggle to create such circumstances. 19 This study is carried out to investigate that how much the women workforce of the banks are strained and how do the pressure of work influence their occupation life, societal life, productivity etc. In order to do so a sample of 10 women employees are selected from each of the three banks for the research of workplace stress among them. Symptoms of Work StressIt is no surreptitious that stress and associated disarray is being considered as generally regular cause of employee disability. Managing of workplace stress is leadership accountability. Good leaders who are familiar with the symptoms of stress can manage situations to create more pleasing workplaces and to improve both efficiency and the bottom line. Corporate women who have served in all conditions distinguish stress when they monitor symptoms such as 7 * Nervousness * Indecisiveness * Petulance * kvetch * Forgetfulness Loss of self confidence * Sleeplessness * Physical tiredness WORKING WOMEN This is the fresh generation of women, who needs to chase their dream career. But this life is not a couch of roses for everyone. Waken up at sharp 6 in the morning after retiring to bed late at night, rattle up an delicious breakfast for each one while getting the children all dress up for school, taking care of the sundry house needs that require her consideration thats the average working womans home schedule for all. Things are not easy for her on the work frontage either.The collective-roles that women are have to play these days, bring about energy leak both at the bodily as well as mental level. 16 II. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The study on the workplace stress among women is conducted with the following objectives * To determine the major causes of workplace stress. * To interpret the steps to reduce work place stress among women. * To find the measures to reduce workplace stress. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY The questionnaires were filled by 30 women those who are working in three major verifys of Bhopal i. e. Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, so the reach of sample findings was less. 0 women employees of divers(a) designations filled the questionnaires. Due to this the opinion of employees differs as they are from different levels/designation. Data are collected from various sources, current articles like from online services, the Internet, and public libraries. The research describes the factors do s tress in the workplace and its impact on women. An effective method of coping with stress is given, but limited to ones examined in the primary and secondary resources. books REVIEW Women and Workplace Stress WOMEN ACCOUNTABILITYStress at work, the stress of lifting up children, the stresses that come with growing old parents, some of these circumstances could offer a fairly high sum of stress 12. When women are faced with collective roles, all of which carry serious demands, they face stages of stress that are high enough to add to fittingness problem, neglected work, and a minify ability to obtain on additional. ACCOUNTABILITY AT OFFICE ACCOUNTABILITY AT HOME Source 5 An environment with weeny flexibility or option would be a bigger risk of agony than an atmosphere of no-voice for a working woman.Interestingly, womens stress matters do not deviate considerably. Women are all-rounder by character and include responsibilities inside responsibilities. 3 Job, relations and dwellin g are not detached and the subjects around balance bounce back in spite of working for yourself or someone else. The new study from University of Melbourne has publicized that almost 1 in every 5 Victorians working women put up with depression23 that can be attributed to lineage stress and more than one in eight or 13 per cent of the working men with depression have trouble due to job stress. 3 The literature on work-related stress has made known many different courses of job related stressors and linked them to such matters as job pleasure and worker yield (Beehr & Bhaget, 1985) 6. One of the major causes of workplace stress is whether the person is satisfied with the job or not. Many researchers found that job related stress issues are related to role ambiguity, role conflict, employee performance and satisfaction, over work load, need for achievement and organizational effectiveness.In 1976 Research 6 conducted in the financial services sector recognized that stress can also i ncrease the probability of errors and arguments as workers cut corners to achieve targets 81% believe irritation in the workplace has pessimistic effect on spirits, 74% are less dynamic when in a bad frame of mind, and 15% work drawn-out (in fear of making a mistake) when their boss is angry. Fear of aggression is often on the minds of individuals who handle cash on a regular basis, and can be a major cause of mental and physical distress (Violence and stress in financial services, 2003).A survey of 1,299 employees from 37 organizations 6 recognized ten causes as the more important providers to employee stress. These were Employees not being free to converse with one another, individual disagreements on the job, Employees not being given charge over their work, insufficient avocation or budget, counselling and workers not talking frankly, guidance supposed as being uncooperative, below average unwell and holiday benefit, lessening in employees profit, overleap of gratitude or return for doing a good job.In one more research Managing Stress at Work by Kate Jenkins conducted in 2001 6 drew number of factors which add to stress in work places, which are people are working longer hours, taking shorter or no breaks, with increase growth in IT and globalization, belittle in spare season and less sleep and there are more time and travel pressures. (Jenkins, 2001) 6 . Work stress sometimes affects organization by * Increased rate of absenteeism. * Decreasing rate of dedication to work. * Increasing rate of employees return. * Increasing rate of grievances from clients and customers. Increasing rate of insecure working exercise. * Negatively alter staff recruitment. 6 With the rapid progression of technology, the rate of work load has change magnitude and thus the stress among working women. To some extent there is the fright from being economized in awful times, leading to better job uncertainty on the part of those who stay 21. Unquestionably, work-related stress is one of the most frequently quoted stressors faced by persons all over the world. The remarks reported by Lundberg offer some descriptions for why Luecken et l originate that women working in clerical and customer service place who had children at home reported greater than before strain at home, but no increase in strain on the job. 2 While some stress is good for inspiration and growing competence, stress after a limit can result in depressing crash such as reduced efficiency and effectiveness. approximately of the people are feeling secluded and upset at work, and this has resulted to better work-related stress. Consulting experts and professionals are being consulted on ways to force out link and inspiration of their employees.Few companies arrange parties and make their workforce feel appreciated at work. These are method to encourage employees and assist them to sense protected at their jobs, interpret into greater yield. On the other hand, not all companies have su ch method in place. Figure 2 Model Of Causes And Consequences Of Work-Related Stress * Source 14 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY III. Research Design This study includes exploratory research on the concerned areas relating to working women and the stress levels that are constantly being matte up by them at their workplace.I have tried to highlight the situation in context of such problem and tried to suggest some of them for correcting the situation. IV. Data army primary Data was collected with the help of self-administered questionnaire which includes 15 items. Secondary data was gathered from newspapers, magazines and online sources such as websites. Some analytical graphs were also collected to alimentation the research objectives. VI. Sample Size I have taken the sample of 30 women employees from three different private banks of Bhopal named ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, AXIS Bank.DISCUSSION & FINDINGS The Major Causes of Work perpetrate Stress among women are In the Modern times stresses c an take the form of financial needs, or emotional disturbance. Contest at work and an increased workload are also the root cause of greater levels of stress. The stress can be identified by the symptoms as mental symptoms usually experienced include sleeplessness, headaches and an incapability to focus. Physical symptoms like heart palpitations, breathlessness, excessive sweating and stomach-aches.Reasons for stress are? There are many different reasons of stress which are also known as stressors, like Common lifestyle stressors include performance, intimidation, and demise stressors. Performance stressors are generated when a person is placed in a state where she feels a need to shine. This could be during performance evaluation, lunch with the boss, or delivering a speech. Threat stressors occur usually when the present situation poses a risky threat, such as a monetary recession, or from a misfortune. death but not least, demise stressors take place when there is a feeling of di vergence such as the fear of losing a loved one, or any other loss. Therefore, there are a variety of stressors, and even more diverse methods and ways of handling with pressure and turning it to our own advantages. The causes which are faced mostly by working women at their workplace in my study at Bank are * Extended working hours * Harder to balance work and home demands * Under utilization of skills * Unreasonable demands for performance17 * Underpaid job * Multiple tasks at work insufficient of maintaining interpersonal communication between the employer and the women employees. 15 * Deficient of maintaining interpersonal relationship among the women employees * The fright of losing ones work * Minimum time left to spend with the family 15 * Treated substandard to your male contemporaries. 1 * Experiencing sexually nagging funny story from your superior and male contemporaries. 4 * Very few of the women employees feel that they are convergeing from depression while most of the employees experience that that they are liberated from the despair.Most of the women employees worry about their contemporaries view about them whereas hardly any of the women employees are not concerned with the view about their colleague. Most of the women workforce of the bank talk about their difficulty and share their opinion with their other half or associates or others while very few of the women employees are not worried with it. Major part of the women employees job above 8 hours which is the starting point of the stress while few of the women employees dont work for more than 8 hours.Nearly 50% of the female employee spent regular time on leisure activities which assists them to stay stress free while 3/quaternary of the women employees dont do that. Nearly half of the women employees find their social life to be even-handed whereas 2/5th of the women employees dont have their social life balanced. Very few of the women employees remain silent. Most of the women employees fright the value of performance being offered by them whereas 15 % of the women employees dont fear the quality of their work. Major part of the sample i. e. round 70 % women workforce try to find the key of their stress while 30% of them do not find any solution. 45% of the women employees try traditional exercises like meditation, naturopathy, yoga and other ancient medicinal methods to decrease their stress whereas 55 % of the women employees use other techniques to reduce stress like resorting to pastime, holiday. After analyzing the data of all the three banks, it is seen that the women employees working in AXIS bank are less stressed out when compared to other banks. It can be for the reason that its a brand name and believe in teamwork as their core values.Steps To ease from Work Place Stress among Women Management of Stress is the requirement of the hour. Though hard we try to go ahead of a stress situation, life appears to discover new behaviour of stressing us out and res ulting with nervousness attacks. 18 Furthermore, be it our nervousness, mind-body tiredness or our erring outlooks, we tend to ignore causes of stress and the circumstances generated by those. In such disconcerting instants we often do not recall that stressors, if not avoidable, are reasonably manageable and treatable. 10 Unfortunately, today, they do not get peaceful and soothing situations without requesting.To be stress-free one has to struggle to make such situations. The suggestions range from individually focused actions to broad based organizational policy changes. These include the following * Just smile away and forget everything An employee of HDFC Bank * Talking to family members ,loved ones, Watching TV or listening good music, Going for a walk or long drive An employee of HDFC Bank * Working in environment benefits, lot of optimistic approach. Optimistic approach is only that reduces stress and achieves triumph. AXIS Bank employee. Adjust with others, Find and spend t ime to go to temple, beg and talk to GOD, Study novels, All are the child of the supreme GOD An employee of AXIS Bank * We should do such actions from which we get pleasure and also make people happy. Share your moments of life with your close friends and relatives. An employee of ICICI Bank. * Provide day care and substitute work preparation as resources for preventing stress. * Provide more job gingersnap for women to better manage work home clashes. 22 * Deal with Finances and Treat physically in spa, massage centres in weekends. Get Help by a mate or servant so that time could be spent with family. 22 * Cook if you like it and serve by your hand to family members. 22 * Dropping / Picking up Kids from School in your leave days and then go for a little walk. 22 * When stressed at work for deadlines or otherwise, give priority to your me time first and maintaining home comes second. 13,20 CONCLUSION In recent years majority of the women discovered that their stress was essential ly due to their idleness and also they were happy with few responsibilities.Lack of loving behavior from their colleagues, scolding from boss, more working hours, under utilization of skill sets was reported as cause of stress always by upper limit percentage of the women. Higher percentage of the respondent experienced stress always because of lack of their involvement in decision making in their organization that reduced their responsibilities on their shoulder and the participatory model followed in their organizational set up enhanced their responsibilities to the point of exhaustion. As women, they need to acknowledge what they have and can do for them to reduce stress.All must remember that old saying, if you dont look after yourself, no one else will look after you. respect yourself SCOPE FOR FUTURE WORK I know that the current level of research may not reveal the exact parameters of stress regarding the causes and suggestions. Therefore, exhaustive research shall be carrie d out in future research work in this particular field. REFERENCES 1. Brief, A. P. , Aldage, R. J. (1998). The self in work organizations A conceptual Review. Academic of Management Review, 6, 75-88. 2. C. 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