Stress Stimulators for the Employees of Service Industry in Dhaka & Its Vicinity

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the main causes of stress for employees working in service organizations in Dhaka and its vicinity. Stress is taken as dependent variable whereas independent variables are categorized into extra-organizational and intra-organizational stressors. Data were collected from service organizations including banks, insurance companies, universities and buying houses. Data were collected through self-administrative questionnaire consisting of 30 questions. Respondents were the employees working at different levels. From the results it was quite clear that employees working in different areas feel great stress, there were different causes due to which employee experience stress. Findings have been classified into extra-organizational and intra-organizational stressors. Extra-organizational stressors include variables such as Traffic Jam, Hyper Inflation, Political Unrest, Social Insecurity, Lack of transportation facility, insufficient income, Unemployment, Residential problems whereas intra-organizational stressors include variables such as inappropriate workload, Salary-responsibility mismatching, Recruitment policies, Over office timing, Career prospect, Working condition, Work-family balance issues. According to results the major intra-organizational stressor is workload (Mean-3.39, Median-3.00 and Mood-3) because employees are been utilized more than their capabilities, second major cause for stress is salary-responsibility matching (Mean-3.19, Median-3.00, Mood-3), as most of the employees feel that their salary is remarkably less than the responsibility they are taking over and the third major intra-organizational stressor is Recruitment policies (Mean-3.15, Median-3.00, Mood-5) as they feels this policy is not fair and transparent enough. The most influential extra-organizational stressor is Traffic Jam (Mean-3.27, Median-4.00, Mood-5) as in Dhaka city most of the people work in a distant place from home as because most of the offices are in the commercial elegant places where the house rent is too high and houses are not available as well, and the second influential extra-organizational stressor is Hyper Inflation (Mean-3.22, Median-3.00, Mood-3) as due to inflation purchasing power is reducing so people find it really difficult to fulfill their needs this ultimately results into stress, the third major extra-organizational stressor is Political Unrest (Mean-3.20, Median-3.00, Mood-3). These are the major three intra and extra organizational stressor on which the organizations and the country as a whole should concentrate to minimize it, as a stressful employee is less productive than a stress free employee.

Keywords: Stress, Service Organizations, Dhaka