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Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram , Oct. 1

A STUDY on stress levels among middle-level managers from 96 leading companies in India and Kenya has shown that tension at the workplace could well have a cascading negative impact on the gross national product (GNP).

Prof V. Mukunda Das, faculty at the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IIITM-K), under whose guidance the study was carried out, told Business Line that job stress could affect the health, with pernicious implications for individual productivity.

Research conducted in the US had revealed that the opportunity cost on account of job stress amounted to no less than 10 per cent of the country's GNP. Further, studies conducted by medical experts have revealed that 50 to 70 per cent of all forms of physical illness could be directly attributed to raised stress levels.

This, according to Prof Das, is a pointer to the nature and intensity of pressure at work resulting from competition in an increasingly globalised economy.

The study, in which a Kenyan scholar, Mr Charles M. Zakayo, was also involved, found that the significant causes of job stress in Indian and Kenyan managers included frequent failure in finalising decisions and strategies, poor career growth, poor time management, suppressed anger stemming from frustration in work situations and hostile trade unionism.

While middle level mangers in both India and Kenya suffered from high levels of job stress, there were variations in the relative stress levels.

A larger proportion of middle level managers in India experienced stress compared to those in Kenya.

The study covered 95 companies from both countries and had 480 middle level managers as respondents.

Its main objectives was to identify major causes of job stress, measure the relative stress levels, and find out if managers who practised stress coping techniques fared any better in handling the situation than those who did not.

According to Prof Das, activities in any organisation are all inter-linked, and lack of mutual understanding between employees would cause stress to all, irrespective of the pecking order.

But, organisations having a high degree of flexibility in their policies and regulations tend to give their middle level managers some degree of freedom to perform the tasks assigned to them.

The study suggested that more organisations in India and Kenya introduce programmes for job stress reduction not just for their middle level managers but all other employees as well.

Two distinct factors clearly set apart the respective environments in both the countries. They are (1) sexual harassment at work is substantially high in Kenya, and (ii) hostile trade unions were India's bane.

Effective time planning and management can help considerably reduce stress levels, Prof Das said.

The study found that those managers who had a clear plan for using their time before the actual work begins, and, as much as possible, stuck to their time plan, had less stress compared to others.

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