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Influence Of Gender And Job Status On Employee Stress Among The Nigerian Police Force
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
It is therefore no exaggeration to say that people today the world over are being assaulted by stress in their various job activities. Job stress is therefore a common concern among many countries of the world both developed and industrialized. This has led these countries to have a lot of concern on it and its adverse effect on workers health especially among the Nigerian police force worker to which this project will mostly emphasize.
Job stress in general perspective is refer to the discomfort, pressure and hardship experienced by workers in their process of work. By psychological terms, it is the psychological and physical strain or tension generated by physical, emotional, social, economic, occupational circumstances, events or experiences that are difficult to manage or endure by workers.
According to researchers or authors, employee’s stress is a critical factor in the determination of employee’s performance and well-being, it also has important implication for organizational at effectiveness. Contributors to the idea of stress at work are in greet number, some researchers emphasized that stress is a multi dimensional concept that includes stress stimuli the processing of system, and the long stress response. This concept was asserted by Steven and Mary (2002) who defined stress as a Perce wed as challenging or threatening for a person’s well being.
According to Ivancerich and Malterson (1980) they conceptualized stress at work as an adaptive response mediated by individual characteristics and or psychological processes that is a consequence of any external action, situation or event that places special demand on a person.
Similarly, Krant, Gruenberg and Baum (1998) captured the meaning of employee stress as an internal state of the individual who perceive threats to physical and or psychic well being. The definition emphasized a person’s perception and evaluation of potentially harmful stimuli and considers the perception of threat to arise from a comparison between the individual’s ability to cope with these demands.
Also, an Australian-born researcher, Selye (1974, 1983) defined stress as the wear and tear on the body due to demands place on it. He used the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) as a term for the common effects on when demand are place on it. The (GAS) he uses consists of three stages: the alarm stage, resistance stage and the exhaustion stage.
In the alarm stage, the perception of a threat on challenging situation causes the brain to send biochemical message to various part of the body, resulting in increased respiration rate, blood pressure, heart beat, Muscle tension and other physiological responses. The individual energy level and coping effectiveness immediately decreases in response to the initial shocks. In most situations, the alarm reaction alerts the individual to the environmental condition and prepares the body for next stage.
In the resistance stage of Selye’s (GAS), the person’s ability to cope with the environmental demand rises above the normal level because the body has activated various biochemical’s, psychological and behavioral mechanism, for instance there are an increased level of adrenaline more than the normal level which gives energy to overcome or remove street source. However, resistances is directed to one or two environmental demands so that the individual becomes more vulnerable or weak to the sources of stress and individuals at this stage are prone to catch cold or other illness.
The final stage which is the exhaustion stage occurs when people have a limited resistance capacity and if the sources of stress persist, they will eventually move into it as it diminishes. At this point, the wear and tear on the body takes its toll the person collapses in a state of exhaustion, and vulnerability for diseases increases.
However, the stress level of a worker increases when the Job do not meet their expectation (Rabasca 1999). When employees find their work personally rewarding, they are better able to handle stress at their work place than when the work is not rewarding.
Stress at work emanates form deferent sources. It could be form over work, Job insecurity, information overload, role related stressors etc. Steven and Mary (2000) categorized potential work-related stressors as physical or environmental, role-related, interpersonal and organizational stressors. According to them, physical or environmental stressors such as excessive noise, poor lighting and safety hazard physical stressors are also becoming apparent in office settings such as poorly designed office, space, lack of privacy and poor air quality.
Environmental or physical stress at work according to Steven (1999) includes environmental uncertainties such as economic uncertainties which occurs when the economy of the country is contracting, political uncertainties which occurs when there are political threats and challenges, lastly technological uncertainties which occurs when there are new innovation or introduction of new ideas which can make the skills and experience of employees obsolete or no longer used in a very short time. Such new ideas are threaten and they include automation, robotics, computers etc these and similar other forms of technological innovations are a threat to many people and cause them stress.
The second work-related stressors is the role related stressors which include conditions where employees have difficult in understanding, reconciling or performing the various roles in their lives. There are four main roles related stressors which are role conflicts, role ambiguity, work load and task characteristics. Role conflict occurs when people face competing demand. There are several types of role conflict in organizational setting, such are inter role conflict which occurs when an employee has too many roles that are in conflict with each other.
Intra role conflict occurs when the individual receives contradictory massages from different people. For instance, when one’s boss wants one as a team leader and expects him to take greater control in the decision making, where as the employees on the team would expect the person to give them freedom. Such situation could contribute to stress to the leader. Person role conflicts as form of role conflict occurs when organizations values and work. Obligations are incompatible or not acceptable with personal values.
Michael (1992) also maintains that role ambiguity results from an unclear understanding of the specific responsibilities that constitute a role. This uncertainty can result when it is unclear how much authority an individual has in making an organizational decision and carrying out his or her duties effectively. This tends to occurs when people enter new situation such as joining the organization or taking a foreign assignment. In this case they are uncertain about tasks and social expectations. They can not rely on past routine, so they concentrate on their actions and carefully monitor responses from others.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
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