In this section, findings of Taiwan public bank employees’ job stressors were explained in two parts; they were interview findings and questionnaire results, respectively.
Ten job stressors were stated first, and descriptive statistics results of questionnaire presented as following. Last, a summary of job stressors was provided (Table 4.1).
Interview Findings
Privatization.There were many differences between private and public banks, such as the organization culture, working style, etc. For example, participant Jerry said that private banks are performance-oriented while public banks are policy oriented. For those who have been working in public banks for decades of years, they might have the pressure to become one of the employees of private banks. Many public bank employees had never worked in private banks, so that they were not familiar with the operation style of private ones. Public bank employee Irene stated,
I am a senior employee now; I have been working in Land Bank of Taiwan for more than 20 years. I am afraid about privatization; for I am not quite familiar how the private banks operate.
This is the reason why I feel stressful about privatization.
Twelve participants were found to that public bank privatization was one of the job stressors. If the public banks turned into private ones, the employees must have much higher sales pressure than they have now. The performance has a lot connection to salary or bonus.
That is, public bank employees have to work hard for their performances; this is the potential stress from sales performance. As public bank employee Una said, “I think everyone will have stress from privatization, and mostly related to sales target. We might have the stress on making money from selling financial products with service charge, or
insurances.”
Client service.
Client service was considered to be one of the major causes of job stress among the public bank employees. Ten participants (Orchid, Irene, Lisa, Una, Sherry, Fred, Judy, Kerr, Eve, and Lynn) in this study stated that client service was their main job stressors. Because that banking was a service industry, how to satisfy the clients was an essential responsibility among the public bank employees. As public bank employee Orchid stated, “Although The Land Bank of Taiwan is a public bank; it cannot change the nature of making profits. We do have the pressure on how to serve the clients.” Things became difficult when public bank employees serve bad-tempered clients, who spoke loudly and were aggressive. High stress often erupted when the communication between bank employees and their clients didn’t go well. Public bank employees were afraid of client complaints. Public bank employee Irene stated,
One of my job stressors was serving clients. We were always told, ‘Clients are always right.’
Even though I had a good reason, I had to control my temper rather than arguing with clients. I remember once I was threatened by a client. He wanted to have a press meeting for he was not satisfied with my service. Luckily, my supervisor helped me soothed the client’s anger. So, there was no press meeting in the end.
Sometimes because of public banks’ historical background, many people have a bureaucratic impression regarding pubic bank employees. Clients had the stereotype that public bank employees couldn’t stand by client’s side and always were arrogant. That also added more difficulty on communication with the clients. In order to eliminate the bureaucratic impression, the public bank employees must speak nicely in order not to offense the clients. As mentioned by public bank employee Lisa,
My job stress came from clients. I was afraid of receiving complaints from clients. The unreasonable clients would say something like ‘why do you talk to me with an arrogant attitude or why you cannot meet my demands. Why you cannot make an exception for me?’ At that time, we need to take some time to explain the whole situation to the client.
It was obviously that public bank employees were in a dilemma between facing clients’
emotional reactions, and the boundary of government regulations; their job stress from client service was serious. And that dilemma happened to almost every public bank employee everyday.
Heavy work load.
There were seven participants (Gino, Irene, Una, Lisa, Sherry, Susan,, Lynn, and Eve) agreed that heavy work load was one of the stressor made them stressed. Work loading was heavy in banking industry, especially in some particular days of each month, such as every 5th, 10th, beginning and end of month. They called these days as “big days”. Public bank employees, especially those worked in Deposits & Remittances department perceived high pressure with heavy work loading during long vacation. For example, before and after the Chinese New Year vacation, public bank employees could be extremely busy. Lots of people prepared money for Chinese New Year and deposited money after the long vacation.
The following was a quote from public bank employee Lisa,
I am busy during some particular days every month. During these days, I am busy and feel lots of pressure. I always told myself that I definitely couldn’t make mistakes when many clients are waiting in lines. I could feel my nerves taut with anxiety.
Public bank employees’ after-office hour was unstable; sometimes they had to adjust accounts. One specialty of banking industry is that close the account was a must-do job everyday. After finished closing accounts, so that the employees can leave the banks. Once the accounts was not balanced, even just for confirming a single cent; it might make the whole department to work overtime. Bank employees are not free after 3:30 p.m; instead there were still lots of work after the door closed. Besides original work, in recent years, public bank employees have started to sell a variety of financial products. That made the public bank employees to learn more rules and complicated their work. One participant Gino stated, “Job stressors are related to work loading. Financial products are complicated nowadays, such as e-commerce, Internet bank, wealth management, etc.”
Risk assessment.
Credit assessment was the first safety inspection before loan. When writing the risk assessment report, the public bank employees should have a clear mind so that they wouldn’t be interfering by the clients. They must take everything into consideration. Once they made wrong judgment toward client’s financial condition, public bank employees might make the whole bank lose a huge amount of money. So those who worked in the credit assessment department almost met the risk assessment pressure. Seven participants (Orchid, Una, Jerry, Susan, Jane, Eve, and Wade) were found that risk assessment was their job stressor, especially those who worked in the credit department. Public bank employee Susan explained,
While I am writing case report, I am very cautious about inspecting the clients’ company.
However, there are some industries that I am not familiar with, at this moment; the risk assessment I can do is limited. So, I worry about bank will take the risk in the future. This is the difficult part of my work and made me stressful.
Leadership style.
In this study, seven participants (Orchid, Irene, Una, Sherry, Fred, Kerr, and Judy) pointed out that job stress came from the supervisors. The supervisors didn’t divide work evenly to their subordinates. Supervisors had the rights to adjust subordinates’ work load.
As public bank employee Kerr said, “My supervisor didn’t take everything into consideration when he divided work. My work load has been enlarged a lot recently, which made me very stressful.” Furthermore, attempted performance evaluation and commendation was one of the duties that supervisors had in the public banks. Public officials performance evaluation results and bonus had a great influence on salary. However, some of the participants thought they didn’t obtain the payment equal to what they devoted to their work. Public bank employee Kerr and Judy thought their supervisors were unfair to every subordinates. When a public bank employee had been treated like that, they usually felt disappointed and angry with supervisors. Judy, public bank employee from the Land Bank of Taiwan, stated,
My team’s performance was the highest of my bank, so that there were three commendations for encouragement (because that there were three people in my team).
However, my supervisor gave the three commendations to the other two colleagues while I got nothing. I felt so furious and extremely uncomfortable. My supervisor treated me like air; he ignored me. I didn’t know how to get along with my supervisor.
Several years had passed; Judy was still very resentful when she shared the experience during the interview. Her flurry actions and outraged face showed her dissatisfaction about her supervisor.
Sales target stress.
In order to compete with private banks, public banks has been getting more serious on extending their business on financial products. Six participants (Gino, Lisa, Ming, Fred, Ting, and Jim) said that sales target stress made them stressful. Being the head of the branches, the managers took sales target responsibility. Two of the 20 participants were branch managers, they mentioned that sales target stress was the heavies job stress to them.
They strived to achieve sales target, which was set up by headquarter. Public banks are different from private banks. Every private bank employees have sales target stress while the managers have sales stress in public banks. As public bank employee Gino said,
Recently, job stress is focused on sales target. In order to compete with private banks, public banks started to place great emphasis on business items and set sales target for each branches.
So we face lots of pressure to fulfill the targets.
Actually, managers were not the only pubic bank employees perceived sales target stress, those who were financial advisors also perceived job stress owning to sales target. As mentioned by public bank employee Fred,
Sales target resulted in my job stress. Sometimes I felt it was difficult to sell financial products.
Because lots of potential clients of my branches were entrepreneurs who own their business, many of them already had their own investment panel. So it was hard to make business with them, which made me felt stressful.
Pressed time.
Pressed time was another reason of leading to job stress. Long working hours was the first reason; for many of the participants (Sherry, Ting, Kerr, Judy, Irene, and Wendy)
mentioned that they didn’t have enough rest time during working time. Public bank employees who worked in deposits and remittances department had badly time stress. They contact with the clients more often than the other departments. And, bank employees not only strived for lessen clients waiting time, but also had pressure of report submission deadline. This happened to participants Una, Jerry, Susan, and Jane, those who worked in credit management department. They must finish writing the report before the deadline.
Participant Jerry said, “I felt difficult when lots of reports on my hand, I don’t know where to start. I feel a surge of anxiety at this time.” When a client wanted to loan from the banks, they must finish the credit investigation. Banks might ask the client to provide some document in need. Somehow, some clients didn’t cooperate with the bank very well. So, this drove public bank employees crazy when the report submission deadline was around the corner. Public bank employee Una stated that,
Submitting the project report gave rise to time pressure to me. I had to assess the risks according to clients’ funds needs, and then wrote a project report to headquarter. Sometimes the submission deadline of the case report was limited. In order not to pass the deadline, I have no choice but work overtime.
Promotion system.
For most public bank employees who participated in this study, the purpose of entering public banks was that everything was systematic. However, the back of systematic turned into fetters. Some public bank employees felt stress about current promotion system of two Taiwan pubic banks; participants Sherry, Fred, Ting, and Jane stated that the promotion system was unfair and might interfered their career development. Participant Lynn mentioned that promotion was a long journey, and the promotion speed was slow. Ability was not the only criterion for promotion. Education, years of seniority, and social ability
were other key elements of deciding one’s promotion. In order to get higher position, some public bank employees studied for a higher education degree, such as EMBA, or influence peddling by the legislators. Public bank employee Kerr stated that,
For those who work very hard like me would have some impacts on my promotion ladder. I think I am a victim under current promotion system. My boss is not professional at all; the only thing he knows is flattery. I don’t think he is qualified to get the promotion.
Though not every public bank employees had a strong ambition to pursue promotion.
However, when they bumped into a hindrance to their career development path; they perceived the job stress from promotion system.
Work and family conflicts.
Female public bank employees who were married had encountered work and family conflicts. However, almost every male participant in this study answered “no” when being asked about this issue. These married mothers (participants Orchid, Irene, Lisa, and Susan) all stated that they could not take children home on time, because they couldn’t predict when could they get off beforehand. Participant Lisa said when she was young and her kids were at little; she had a hard time finding the balance between family and work. This conflicts between work and family exhausted career women. The following was a quote from participant Orchid,
When I was young, my kids were too little to take care of themselves. Sometimes my kids were sick while I was busy with work. I couldn’t take day off. And I couldn’t take my kids home early. I usually go home after 7 p.m. After get home, I still have to do lots of housework, which made me have no time to relax.
Be strict with selves.
Some public bank employees perceived job stress because they were strict with themselves. They strived for doing everything perfectly. They didn’t want to make mistakes.
When they were writing reports, they would be picky about every words and sentences.
Their job stress came from themselves; for they pursued a high quality of their work. The following was quoted from public bank employee Susan,
I remember once I wrote a loan case with huge amount of money that took me lots of time. I forced myself to finish by the deadline. And it must be a perfect report, which would not humiliate the whole bank and myself. Every sentence in the report must be beautiful and good.