JOB STRESS AND EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background of the study

Job stress is a growing problem that results in substantial costs to individual employees and work organizations around the globe. Stress is vigorous state in which a person is confronted with an opportunity, demand, or resource related to what the individual wishes and for which the outcome is perceived to be both vague and vital. (Selye, 1936) first introduced the idea of stress in to the life science. He defined stress as the force, pressure, or tension subjected upon an individual who resists these forces and attempt to uphold its true state. Basically what is stress? The HSE (HealthSafety Executive Uk) defines stress is an undesirable response people have to tremendous pressures or other types of demands placed upon them. It arises when they worry they cannot deal with. Some stress can be good, and some can be bad. HSE distinguishes between stress and pressure. Pressure is seen as positive and something that actually helps improve our performance. We all need a certain amount of pressure to perform well – ask any athlete, actor or actress. However, the problems arise when the sources of pressure become too frequent without time to recover, or when just one source of pressure is too great for us to cope with. Stress can be understood more comprehensively as, it is a condition which happens when one realizes the pressures on them, or the requirements of a situation, are wider than their recognition that they can handle. If these requirements are huge and continue for a longer period of time without any interval, mental, physical or behavioral problems may occur, (Health &Safety Executive UK). Stress has become major problem for employer particularly in developing nations where the employer doesn’t realize the impact of stress on employee performance ultimately resulting in critical managerial dilemmas (Subha & shakil, 2010). Stress is universal experience in the life of each and every employee even executives and managers. Moreover, occupational stress may cause a loss of talent and an increase of training cost, due to high turnover (Cartwright and Boyes, 2000). While stress is inevitable, it constitutes a real threat to the quality of life for employees (Dyck, 2001) not to mention its link to an increased risk of morbidity and mortality (Siegrist, 1998). It is estimated that about 100 million workdays are being lost due to stress and nearly 50% to 75 % disease are related to stress (Bashir, 2007). Stress results in high portion of absence and loss of employment, the ratio of stress affects in organization are increasing on alarming rate which affects both the employee commitment and goal achievement (Treven, 2002).

In University, lecturing is generally perceived as a stressful and demanding profession. It is both physically and psychologically challenging. There is substantial evidence that lecturing is a stressful occupation, which can lead to disruptions in both psychological and physical health and can impair professional practice (Huber, 2000). Stress is a pervasive and insidious part of everyday life and in the work environment. It is a common theme in lecturing (Rogers, 2003). There is a growing body of evidence, which validate that lecturers especially in public University experience stress in the course of carrying out their work. In academic setting, job stress can cause unusual and dysfunctional behaviour at work and contribute to poor physical and mental health. In extreme cases, long-term stress or traumatic events at work, may lead to psychological problems conductive to psychiatric disorders resulting in the workers being unable to work again. Job-stress could affect university by increasing absenteeism, decreasing commitment to work, increasing staff turn-over, impairing performance and productivity, increasing complaints from student, increasing mistakes and causing damage to University’ image both among their workers and externally (Nnuro, 2012). However, Muttie, Rabbia, Namra, Uzma and Ume(2012) found that job-stress has positive value on organizational commitment. It offers potential gain, for example, the superior performance that an ophthalmologist gives during a complicated surgery. Such individuals often use stress positively to rise to the occasion and perform to their maximum. And hence the productivity rises.

According to Anwar Khan et al. (2012) saying that lecturers’ stress in particularly means a situation where the lecturer is exposed to Certain unwanted environmental factors, which either exists within the educational institution (internal factors) or exists outside the educational institution (external factors), These factors hamper the normal routine life of lecturers by negatively affecting reviews their performance at work. University commitment to a lecturer is indispensable in carrying out its duties as a lecturer. Although lecturing is very heavy task in implementing the learning of the students, a lecturer must remain committed to the profession. Mc Schane et al. (2003:32) explain the strong organizational behavior commitment can make someone to achieve their importance and the aim organizational with maximal. On this background the researcher wants to investigate on job stress and employee commitment in public Universities (Using Rivers State University of Science and Technology and University of Port Harcourt as a case study)

• STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Over the years, a lot of research has been carried out in the realm of work place stress and it has been emphatically proven that intense or prolonged stress leads to a negative impact on one’s mental and physical wellbeing (Health & Safety Executive, 2001). Stress is a major cause of employee absenteeism and turnover and certainly such factors severely limit the potential success of an organization (Steers 1981). Stress causes health and physical problems, accounting for fifty percent of all absenteeism and contributing to the phenomenon of “presenteeism”. Absenteeism costs the employer in terms of both sick time paid and overtime paid to replace the employee while Presentees (people who are present at work in body but not in mind) are typically those who make mistakes, jeopardize quality and have accidents (Cooper et al, 2001). The result of these effects is decreased productivity and profit margins. Costs relating to stress also include staff leaving the organization for stress-related reasons.