On exploring the causes of job stress, the findings of interviews and questionnaire were a little bit different from each other. The table below showed the findings of the two methods (see table 4.1.). In this study, twelve job stressors were founded as privatization, client service, heavy work load, risk assessment, leadership style, sales target stress, pressed time, promotion system, work and family conflict, be strict with selves, policy, and economic environment.
Economic environment had been changed a lot this decades. With financial and environmental change, banking industry in Tainan is facing various problems. According to participants, Taiwan banking industry is over-banking and competitive. Overbanking referred to a lot of banks build and operated. It resulted in a high homogeneity among bank products and make bank management more difficult. And, Taiwan government was taking some actions to privatize public banks. Sales target was one of the results in the competitive Taiwan banking industry. This made public bank employees felt stress. Though lots of participants said that privatization made them stressful; “policy” stressor in questionnaire may contain others policy stressor. So, economic environment, policy, privatization, and
0
Figure 4.2. Job stressors of Taiwan public bank employees
People
sales target were related to market. Second, Client service was another job stressor, and it was all about business of banking industry. Third, according to the findings of interviews and questionnaires, amounts of respondents in the study mentioned that job stress was due to the nature of work. And, many of the participants said that risk assessment was one of their job stressor, being worry about wrong risk assessment. Heavy work load, pressed time, and risk assessment were all connected to the nature and type of banking industry. So these three job stressors were categorized into work condition stressor. Four, promotion system in Taiwan public banks made their employees stressed. Participants felt unsatisfied with the current promotion system. In addition, leadership style stressor was from public bank employees’ supervisors. Both promotion system and leadership style stressors were owing to the fact that public bank employees were unsatisfied about bank management. What’s more, family stressor happened to female public bank employees, especially for those already got married, felt the conflicts between family and work. Last, according to the participants, sometimes job stress came from themselves. They were strict to themselves and had lots of self-demands. Be strict to selves was one of the job stressors.
Table 4.1.
Job stressors of Taiwan Public Bank Employees
Interview Questionnaire
N/A Economic environment
Privatization Policy
Sales Target Sales Target
Client service Client service
Heavy work loading Heavy work loading
Pressed time Pressed time
Impacts of Job Stress
Findings of Taiwan public bank employees’ job stress impacts were explained in interview findings and questionnaire results, respectively. Job stress impacts on physical and psychological health was described first, and descriptive statistics results of job stress impacts questionnaire offered as following (Table 4.2.). At the back, a summary merging findings of two data was provided.
Interview Findings
Impacts of job stress could be divided into mental and physical symptoms. Physical symptoms were resulted from sedentary work and long working hours, for instance low metabolism, chronic disease, insomnia, stiffed shoulders, and backache.
Physical health impacts.
Stomach sick.
Generally, most bank employees had stomach problems, for they could not finish their meals in the regular time. They perceived high job stress so that they often had stomachache problems. A public bank employee from Bank of Taiwan, said, “I am 40. I have been diagnosed with duodenal ulcer and gastric ulcer. I think it has a lot to do with my job stress. I worked very hard before, and stayed up late working.”
Insomnia.
No matter how old was the pubic bank employee, which department he/she works for, both male and female has insomnia. Insomnia was one of the apparent symptoms of job stress. When being asked about the impacts of job stress, 5 of the 20 participants reporting having insomnia, and bad sleep quality. As public bank employee, Lisa, explained, “I often suddenly woke up during sleep, and was still thinking about my work.” Another participant, Ben, who worked in the collect department has same sleep problems as well, said, “I often have insomnia. I even ponder deeply over my work. I felt so stressful at that time. I cannot get good sleep almost everyday.”
Shoulders and backache.
Owning to sitting for a long time, especially when there were too many clients to serve, public bank employees commonly had backache, neck and shoulder pain. As participant Susan stated, “Sometimes I sit for such a long time so that my backache and shoulders are so painful.”
Psychological health impacts.
Most participants stated that they felt negative emotions when they perceived job stress, such as, nervous, sorrowful, impatient, and fidgety. Some of the participants even said they had bad temper, as they perceived job stress. Public bank employee Irene described that, “I felt nervous when lots of clients were waiting in line. Sometimes the clients would express their impatience, then I felt very anxious at that time.”
Some participants mentioned that they felt no motivation about work, felt disappointed about them, what’s worse, for those who perceived extremely high job stress had job burnout, as well. Public bank employee Jane said, “I felt depressed and frustrated when I think of my work. Sometimes I just don’t want to go to my office; I hope the weekends could never end.”
Questionnaire Results
The scale used to measure the job impacts included 19 questions in five distinctive dimensions. These impacts resulted from job stress were anxiety, fatigue, depression, dissatisfaction, and low-esteem. Public bank employees felt fatigue most in general (2.89), as revealed in Table 4.3, whereas the dissatisfaction acted as the second impacts of job stress (2.78), followed by low self-esteem (2.74), anxiety (2.70), and depression (2.55).
The top impact of job stress was item no. 5 “I feel very tired after work everyday.”
(3.365) in general. The second item was no. 7 “It might be helpful for my health if I change my job” (3.026), no. 3 “I felt very nervous when I am working” is followed (3.000). Top two items were included in fatigue dimension; showing that public bank employees felt fatigue the most. On the other hand, item no. 9 “I am a useful person in my organization/department” got the lowest (2.113), no. 4 “I have stomachache when I am working” (2.470), and no 8 “I am unenthusiastic when I am working” (2.470) shared the lowest with the identical 2.470 in average. This table presented that public bank employees felt fatigue, but their job stress didn’t make them feel depression.
Table 4.2
Descriptive Statistics on Taiwan Public Bank Employees’ Job Stress Impacts (N=115)
Items Mean SD 9. I am a useful person in my organization/department. 2.113 4
0
0.792
10. I am more irritable when I am working. 2.617 0.9691
11.I feel depressed and unhappy when I am working. 2.617 0.9876
12.My work’s prospect is full of hope. 2.869 5
6
0.755
Dissatisfaction 2.787 3
0
0.678
13.I am satisfied with my current job. 2.687 0
0
0.692 14.This job is in accordance with my expectation. 2.765 8
2
0.776 15.If I had to choose again, I will choose to work in the same organization. 0
without hesitation.
2.826 1
0.929 16. If my friend was interested in my job, I will strongly recommend he come. 2.869 6
6 18. My current position is very important to my organization/department. 2.765 6
2
0.753 19. My talent can be utilized when I am working on current position. 2.800 1
0
0.751 6