Syed Gohar
Abbas, Associate Professor. Email: abbas.ba@suit.edu.pk
Rabiya
Ishrat, Assistant Professor Email: rabia.ba.suit@edu.pk
Waheed ur
Rehman, Assistant Professor. Email: rabia.ba@suit.edu.pk
Sarhad
University of Science & Information Technology, Peshawar
Abstract. Teacher’s ill-health & job strains
particularly in higher educa-tion sector is usually more deceptive as compared
to other professions because of its vague nature of roles and is dissimilar to
other professions and has substantial connections with numbers of scholars in
class, their numerical assessments, workload issues, miserable organizational
practices, job insecurity and inadequate recognition. Moreover, the antecedents
and consequences of job related strains varies from person to person because of
our different personality types and as we are all unique in our perceptions and
behaviors. This exploratory research aimed to investigate & explore the
factors at the work environment which have a significant impact on faculty
well-being, and the possibilities of improvement of the work environment for
academic world with particular reference to a public sector university. The
results revealed inverse relationship between job strains and performance. The
significant job related factors causing stress for male and female faculty
members were different. Furthermore female faculty members and faculty members
with Type A personality reported higher levels of ill-health. Type A
personality also reported higher performance when compared with Type B &
Type AB.
Key words:
Teacher, personality, job satisfaction, ill-health
Introduction
Research on physical &
psychological ill-health among academe indicates that it is a common phenomenon
among teachers therefore the academic work environment needs to be examined and
more specifically organizational specific characteristics, like leadership, HR
practices, workload and time pressures, uncertainty, lack
of feedback, social support etc. (Kinman & Jones
2004; Winefield et al. 2003; Tytherleigh et al., 2005). Job strains refer to a
feeling of psychological and/or physical pressures because of being incapable
to manage the environmental demands, challenging events and stressful
encounters over period of time (Kahn et al., 1964; Lazarus, 1991). In such situations, people are confronted
with opportunities or demands related to what they desire but the outcomes are
perceived to be both indeterminate and significant (Robbins, 2001) and it can
be labeled as both positively and negatively (Selye, 1956). Some reasons which
have been identified by different researchers include role conflict, role
overload, role ambiguity, and fear of unknown and perceptions of maltreatment
by the organization (Srivastav, 2007). For example, an instructor who attempts
to conduct an outstanding lecture every day is likely to be prone to exhaustion
when his employer does not realize that other aspects of his job (e.g.
publication) which might be more important for him as compared to teaching.
Moreover, students’ performance is usually on top priority of good academicians
(Shah, Rahman & Abbas, 2015), so dedicated teachers also try their level
best to put maximum efforts even for the performance of the low graders
(students). Teachers who try to overcome such issueswith less organizational
support may end up in low motivation, may cause strain on his/her emotions and
physical conditions (Abbas, Shahab & Badar, 2016) which in turn leads to
absenteeism & high turnover. The observations mentioned above differ from
person to person because each one of us brings unique characteristics to our
job and these individual differences determine how the individual will react to
a particular situation. Some may recognize these issues as a challenge but the
others may take it as a risk. For example Type B personality usually show less
concern to stress as compared with Type A. Normally the Type A’s tend to be
over-competitive, outgoing, and also sense impatience most of the time with the
speed at which the events take place and dissatisfied with life (Robbins, 2001).
Type B’s have less desire to compete; they are not impatient, are less status
conscious and also less aggressive.
Literature Review
Nowadays, the organizations’ job environment
considerably differ from the job environment of few decades ago particularly in
the academic world e.g. lengthier time at workplace are common nowadays,
regular modifications in organizational structure are normal (Locke & Teichler, 2007; Fotinatos-Ventouratos
& Cooper, 2005) which in-turn lead to countless pressures on employees.
Burnout is one of the most burning issue which
leads to ill-health (Lu et al., 2003). It
has been considered as a reaction to demanding circumstances at work that leads
to physiological reaction manifested by psychometric indications such as
coronary artery disease, hypertension, headache and peptic ulcer. According to
a survey by Statistics Canada, its not hard work which causes job stress.
Rather, it’s having no control over how, when, or with whom you do your job.
Based on survey from 9000 Canadians, psychological distress was found highest
among people in job with the high work demands but little autonomy for decision
making. People who had demanding professions but also considerable autonomy to
make decision were less stressed. Only 27% of them had high psychological
ill-health scores. Consistent with other studies, the worst job strain was
reported by those, who were supposed to work directly with the public e.g.
police, nurses and teachers. Another deduction from this study was that women
reported a higher degree of pressures than men. The researchers recognized this
to two factors i.e. men usually have more decision-making power in their jobs
and women feel less supported by their co-workers as compared to men.
Most of the research on stress among academic
staff has resulted from the work conducted in Europe and USA. Blix, Cruise and
Mitchell (1994) in their studies reported that 66% of sample of university’s
teaching faculty perceived high levels of worries during work at least 50% of
the time. They found that most of the issues faced by the faculty was directly
related to time pressures and resource inadequacy. Some researchers is defined
stress & strain in terms of reaction to situations that results from
negative emotions, and particularly teaching faculty are the ones among all the
occupational groups which function under conditions of high stress which is
frequently caused by many internal and external factors which may include fewer
rewards, inadequate environment, performance pressures in limited time, poor
motivation, interpersonal conflicts, resources inadequacy, unequal work
distribution, lack of community spirit and dearth of support by bosses
Faculty stress is usually more deceptive as
compared to other professions because of its vague nature of roles and is
dissimilar to the business profession; the distressing effects are not often
counterbalanced by moments of satisfaction (Claxton, 1989). According to
Griffith et al. (1999), if other factors remain constant, stress affects younger
and less experienced teachers over seniors and ore experienced teachers; single
teachers over the married ones; and female teachers over males.
Lackritz (2004); Gillespie et al. (2001) in their studies on
teachers’ burnout revealed that burnout had substantial connections with
numbers of scholars in class, their numerical assessments, workload issues,
miserable organizational practices, job insecurity and inadequate recognition
Moreover they concluded that female faculty members were more “burned-out” as
compared to males. Kyriacou (1998) also identified few major categories as the
sources of faculty stress which primarily include time pressures, low status,
students’ indiscipline, poor working conditions, poor motivation and conflicts
with colleagues
Stress produces a range of adverse, costly, and
devastating consequences e.g. dissatisfaction and anger; depression; inability
to relax; feelings of low self-esteem and self-accomplishment, fatigue and emotional exhaustion; irregular
sleeping habits due to insomnia, psychosomatic complaints and cardiac problems
(Brown & Ralph, 1998; Hinton & Rotheiler, 1998; Travers & Cooper,
1998). Thus in organizational setting, burnout has become a major contributor
to ill-health and performance issues of individuals, and costs a lot to the
organizations.
On the positive side, research also revealed
that a certain level of stress in academe is unavoidable, even beneficial.
Hinton and Rotheiler (1998) pointed out that the enthusiasm and challenge of
teaching may cause the adrenaline level to rise which are linked with stress,
and Dunham (1992) showed that teachers work at highest efficiency level when
the jobs allocated to them are in equilibrium with their perceived coping
skills. Interestingly, very little challenge and too much can be harmful.
Stress can be temporary or long-term, minor or severe and its impact on a
teacher depends generally on how long its causes continue and how powerful they
are? If stress is short-term and minor, people may handle it or at least recover
from its effects quickly. However extreme outcomes of stress include
depression, burnout, workplace
violence and decreased performance.
Individual
differences and stress performance relationship
Individual differences account for a widespread
range of responses to stress; a task viewed as a challenge by one person may
crop high level of anxiety in another (Newstrom & Davis, 2003). In the mid-1900s, psychosomatic medicine began to position
on identifying precise psychological features that might be considered as
genuine risk factors in relation to ill-health. With particular reference to
the ways in which employees cope with stress, two separate personality
categories characterized by opposing sets of behavioral patterns called as Type
A and Type B were found (Friedman & Rosenman, 1959). Research shows
that based on individual personality differences, some employees are stimulated
by stress and perform better, where as other employees report low performance.
In other words, a person’s readiness to respond to stress with negative or
positive feeling may also be a critical cause of performance. The ‘Type As’ is the people operating at their maximum
possible speed, want to achieve competitive goals and are
usually with exaggerated sense of time urgency. They usually consider
everything to be a challenge and can handle more tasks at the same time while
performing well at them all (Robbins & Judge, 2003). However this over
achievement does not come for free and are subject to significant amounts of stress. The
other personality is the Type B, who is exactly opposite as they are patient,
with no sense of time urgency, do not exhibit their achievements, may play for
fun and not to show their superiority. Unlike Type A, they can relax without
guilt (Robbins & Judge, 2003).
Summing up, Type-As are thus more
prone to stress and in-turn have a higher chance of getting psycho-somatic
illness because of the over competition and performance pressures round the
clock. On the contrary, Type Bs has a greater capacity to handle the stressful
situations comfortably and in-turn, are less vulnerable to negative stress
related consequences.
One of the most vital challenges faced by
education sector is to overcome teacher’s stress related issues by developing a
conducive climate where they can understand its pros and cons, take it as a
challenge, and needs to be on their discussion agenda both formally and
informally (Claxton, 1989). This can be incorporated from three areas;
1-
Teachers
must become aware of their stress-full problems they face
2-
They
should be allowed to speak publicly about stress-full issues
3-
Their
captains should take care of such issues and respond accordingly
Objectives
of Research
This exploratory research aims to
investigate& explore (1) the well-being of teaching faculty at the
universities, (2) the factors at the work environment which have a significant
impact on faculty well-being, and (3) possibilities of improvement of the work
environment for academic world. This exploratory research aimed to address the
following research questions:
Research
Methodology
The present study targeted the academic staff
of a public sector university of Pakistan. Because of shortage of time and
resources, convenience based sampling was used and 221 faculty members from
various departments were approached directly to collect the data. Tools used
for gathering primary data were questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.
The tools of interview and observation were used to gather facts about their
job routine and to know how environmental factors influence the work patterns.
This helped us to refine our questionnaire, which we have used as a primary
data collection tool. Three of the main variables were used. Two of the
variables were independent including job related stress factors and
personality. The dependent variable was performance. The variables mentioned
above were further categorized into many other sub-variables.
Job
Related Stress Factors
It was measured by self-designed questionnaire
and defined as sources of stress by Hartrick and Hills (1992) and Michie
(2002).Keeping in view the organization of the study; we intended to study the
following independent variables:
A five point Likert scale, ranging from “never”
to “constantly” was used to measure all scales. At some places reverse scale
was also used. The scale was grouped into 10 sub scales; These include Work
Overload (WO), Job Description & Role Conflict (JDRC), Communication &
Comfort With Supervisor & Colleagues (CCS&C) , Office Environment &
Resources (OE&R), Feeling Of Inequity (FOIE), Lack Of Skills & Training
Opportunities (TSO), Harassment (HAR),Grievance Handling (GH), Lack of
Authority (AUTH) and Job Security (JSEC). These variables have been analyzed to
identify the factors that have high tendency towards occupational stress. The
summated scores are converted into percentages to get better results as the
number of questions varies from indicator to indicator. Percentages are used to
make the analysis more meaningful. The summated score ranges from 20% to 100%
i.e.
As all the departments reported their stress
within the same range so conclusions were made in relative terms i.e. relative
to other departments’ stress against performance.
Job
Performance
It is the effectiveness of the individual in
carrying out his/her roles and responsibilities related to academics. A self
explained questionnaire was a used as the research tool. A five point Likert
Scale ranging from 1 to 5 is another tool that was used. This scale is grouped
into many other subscales:
To collect information about the performance
faculty members, questionnaires, semi-structured interviews from the faculty
members and their reporting officers’ feedback was used. A traditional rating
scale was utilized to determine a summative score for performance. Each Faculty
member was rated on the three performance items using a scale ranging from 1 to
5 and these scores were converted into percentages. The summated scores ranged
from 20% to 100%.
As all the departments reported their
performance within the same range so conclusions were made in relative terms
i.e. relative to other departments’ performance against stress.
As all the departments reported their
performance with in same range so conclusions were made in relative terms i.e.
relative to other departments’ performance against stress.
Personality
Characteristics
A revised version of the questionnaire
developed by Hartman et al., (2001) comprised of 15 questions was adapted to
our sample and was used to conclude the behavior pattern for Type-A, Type-B
& Mod A (Type AB).
Descriptive
Statistics and Data Analysis
Occupational
Stress, Personality Type and Job Performance
As mentioned earlier, structured questionnaire
were designed to collect data from different departments of a public sector
university. Questionnaires from 221 faculty members were collected from the
different departments however questionnaires of 200 faculty members were
considered for analysis. 21 questionnaires were rejected based on initial
screening. The demographic details are presented in the table below:
Table 1: Demographic Details of the Sample (N=200)
|
Demographic Characteristic |
|
Number |
|
GENDER |
Female |
51 |
|
Male |
149 |
|
|
POST |
Professor |
6 |
|
Associate Professor |
14 |
|
|
Assistant Professor |
39 |
|
|
Lectures |
141 |
|
|
Status |
Married |
109 |
|
Unmarried |
91 |
|
|
Qualification |
PhD |
48 |
|
Non-PhD |
152 |
Initial
Analysis
Our scales defining various job
related stressors, personality types and performance were based on the
literature review, observations and on the results of our preliminary
interviews. However slight changes were made in the questionnaires to make sure
that our respondents can understand the questions clearly. Reliability tests
were conducted on our sample for each set of questions and few items were also
removed to improve the reliability of the instruments we have used. The
questionnaire items finally used in analysis were only those with cronbach’s
alpha values more than 65%. Significance level of 5% and below has been taken
as a standard throughout the analysis.
Overall
Stress Factors Impact
The average of all the factors reported that
Job Description & Role Conflict, Work Overload, Grievance Handling as the
topmost reasons for stress with an average/mean of 56 (approx). Office
Environment & Resources was also reported as an important reason of stress
with an approximate score of 54. Almost all the departments reported the
factors of harassment, lack of training/skills opportunities at the lowest
level as a source of stress at an average of 36 and 30 as can be seen in the
graph below.
Figure 1 – Overall Occupational Stress Factors
Regression
analysis revealed Job
Description and Role Conflict (JD & RC), Office Environment and Resources
(OE & R) and Grievance Handling (GH) most significantly positively related
to faculty ill-health.
Table 2: Regression Analysis (N=200)
|
Factors |
Beta |
t |
Sig. |
|
(Constant) |
|
1.758 |
0.081 |
|
JD&RC |
0.399 |
2.119 |
0.001 |
|
FOIE |
0.116 |
1.197 |
0.234 |
|
WO |
0.189 |
2.231 |
0.027 |
|
CCS&C |
0.065 |
0.645 |
0.52 |
|
OE&R |
0.223 |
0.27 |
0.005 |
|
TSO |
0.208 |
2.339 |
0.081 |
|
HARR |
0.088 |
0.994 |
0.322 |
|
GH |
0.188 |
1.784 |
0.015 |
|
AUTH |
0.017 |
0.471 |
0.344 |
|
JSEC |
0.114 |
0.342 |
0.092 |
a.
Dependent Variable: ill-health
As shown in Table 4, male faculty members
reported the following sources of stress more dominant as compared to females.
These include Job Description and Role Conflict, Office Environment and
Resources, Lack of Authority and Job Security. Female’s concern towards the
following factors has been reported at high level as compared to male faculty
members. These include Grievance Handling, Communi-cation & Comfort with Supervisors
and Colleagues, Feeling of In-Equity and Work Overload.
Table 3: Overall
Gender Specific Stressors (N=200)
|
Factors |
Male's
Mean |
Female's
Mean |
|
JD&RC |
58 |
54 |
|
FOIE |
51 |
54 |
|
WO |
57 |
58 |
|
CCS&C |
47 |
52 |
|
OE&R |
57 |
49 |
|
TSO |
30 |
28 |
|
HARR |
36 |
35 |
|
GH |
56 |
59 |
|
AUTH |
55 |
47 |
|
JSEC |
52 |
43 |
Figure 2: Overall Gender Specific Stressors
Occupational
Stress & Performance Relationship (Gender Specific Distribution)
Table 4 Occupational Stress and Performance
Relationship (N=200)
|
Factors |
|
Min |
Maxi |
Mean |
|
Stress
|
Male |
23.33 |
66.67 |
30.457 |
|
Performance
|
43.7 |
84.44 |
70.4622 |
|
|
Stress |
Female |
26.67 |
60 |
48.3333 |
|
Performance |
51.85 |
73.33 |
54.2222 |
Figure 2 Occupational Stress &
Performance Relationship (EE)
Personality
Characteristics of Participants
As discussed in the literature review, every
person is unique in its perceptions and responds differently to the same
situation. Situations which one person smell as challenging and stimulating
might be seen as threat and may cause stress among others. Literature suggests
that type A personality being over competitive and impatient are more
vulnerable to stress, when compared with type B. Out of total 200 respondents,
51 were TypeA, 48 were TypeB and 101 were Type AB.
Table 5 Personality Distribution of Participants
(N=200)
|
Type |
Frequency |
Percent |
|
A |
51 |
25,5 |
|
B |
48 |
24 |
|
Mod AB
|
101 |
50,5 |
|
Total |
200 |
100.0 |
Figure 3 The relationship of stress &
performance with personality type has been revealed as
Table 6 Personality
Type, Stress and Performance Relationship (N=200)
|
|
Mean |
|
Stress
Type A |
40.2099 |
|
Performance Type A |
79.83 |
|
Stress
Type B |
31.6667 |
|
Performance Type B |
60.22 |
|
Stress
Type AB |
34.0796 |
|
Performance
Type AB |
64.89 |
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Mean Type
A Type
B Moderate
AB Mean Stress Mean Performance
Figure 4
Stress-Performance vs Personality Type
Findings and Conclusion
The results of the study indicate that there is
an inverse relationship between occupational stress and job performance. The
faculty members with relatively high stress level showed relatively good
performance when compared with low levels of stress. Furthermore female faculty
members and faculty members with Type A personality reported higher levels of
stress. Type A personality also reported higher performance when compared with
Type B and Type AB.
The second most important reason reported by
almost all the departments as a source of stress was job description and role
conflict. In unstructured interviews it was observed that many faculty members
were reporting to more than one boss, their job description was not clear to
them, and they suffered a lot because of their involvement in other
co-curricular activities. Our preliminary interviews also revealed that most of
the faculty members with ambiguous and multiple roles felt overloaded most of
the time, but were still willing to take other assignments and in parallel they
seemed to be more stressed and anxious as compared to others who were only
engaged in teaching. These results corroborated with the studies by Caplan et
al. (1975) which revealed role ambiguity and workload positively related with
depression and anxiety; and it was greatest for Type A people.
Through unstructured interviews and personal
observations, it has been observed in almost all the departments that even some
senior faculty members faced a lot of problems in getting hold of the resources
to complete their tasks. It also has been observed that the faculty members
used to pick up and install the Multimedia themselves, thus wasting a lot of
time particularly when the devices proved to be out of order. This causes an
embarrassment for the teachers in front of the students. Even if the faculty is
fully prepared with a power point presentation for some technical lecture, he
is not sure whether a multimedia projector will be available or not. This has
also contributed a lot towards stress and firefighting on daily basis.
Job security, lack of authority, privacy, time
management, office equipment & resources, job description and role conflict
have contributed to increase stress in male faculty members more than the
females. Females have reported the factors of grievance handling, feeling of
inequity, communication and comfort with supervisor & coworkers to be main
contributors towards stress, when compared with males. Harassment has been
placed at the lower end by both the male and female faculty, as a source of
stress.
The results have shown that Type As slightly
performed well with slightly highly vulnerability towards stress, but there was
no significant difference on stress performance relationship among faculty with
different personality attributes. There was no significant difference between
the stress level of Type B and Type AB. But stress level of Type A was reported
higher from both Type AB and Type B.
Recommendations
With particular reference to stress in academe
in higher education, we recommend to formulate a multimodal approach for stress
management which will result in a more efficient, broad-based intervention
strategy with more chances of success.
In addition, we also recommend organizing such
interventions at both individual and organizational level, so as to ensure
effective outcomes. Interestingly, some
interviewees revealed that if they admit experiencing stress or intend to
participate in stress management related activities, it may involve a
risk being labeled as ‘‘weak’’ and unable to cope with the demands of the job.
Harkness et al. (2005) suggest that people consider that revealing stress at
job is usually perceived by bosses as an expression of weakness or
unskillfulness. Such views of the employees
should be curtailed and an environment of openness should be encouraged, so
employees may talk their hearts out and could benefit from such trainings and
sessions.
Based on the major finding and conclusions
mentioned in the above paragraphs, few of the recommendations are advised
below. Since the major sources of stress identified are job description &
role conflict, grievance handling, work overload, office environment &
resources the following specific recommendations are made:
a.
Managing Job Description and Role Conflict: Usually
the conflicts
which arise among people are the role conflicts which according to
Antonioni (1996) can be a mask that hides the real person. To lessen conflict
between students and teachers, precise descriptions of expectations
of all these must be in written and communicated to all. Accurately defining
the various roles are very important to reduce
conflicts and it must also be kept in mind we all are unique in our
interpretations so individual differences must also be considered while
incorporating the policies.
As a social being, usually teachers have four roles
including administrator and/or teacher, father/mother, spouse, & friend and
each of these roles are coupled with some expectations
and responsibilities.
To be a good teacher, they must define their role to teach with zeal and zest
rather than just acting the role of a teacher. Once they add the element of
commitment in their job, they may not face the negative consequences of stress.
However, over commitment is not the solution but a problem in itself. For
example burnout has been related with dedicated and
committed workers who feel internal pressure to work (Freudenberger, 1974) and
accumulated stresses can force the dedicated educators to burn out. Moreover,
the job description and the roles must be fixed at the start of the job as a
contractual agreement and it must match the educator’s interest, experience and
academic background.
Furthermore if a teacher has been assigned
different jobs at a time, with different roles to play, it must be formally
communicated to him/her with clear guidelines and parameters defined to avoid
any role ambiguity. He/she should be appraised against the expectations and
good work be acknowledged in public at the end of the day to keep him
motivated. If otherwise next time if he has to play the same role, not
applauded last time, the supervisor may not find the element of commitment but
compliance and ultimately resistance in the subordinate’s attitude. The
expected outcomes from clarifying the job description and reducing role
conflict in an academic setup will be:
· Negative consequences of stress for the
teachers will be reduced.
· Teacher – student conflicts in the classroom
and will be reduced.
· Congenial relationships between the teachers,
the students and the captains of their institutions will be augmented.
b. Grievance
Handling: There should be proper grievance handling committee with
experienced committee members. The culture of “Who brings a trouble is a
trouble maker” should be avoided and the grievances be welcomed to avoid an
atmosphere of stress. Few of the recommendations regarding grievance handling
are as follows:
·
Grievances
should be resolved promptly and in accordance with relevant policy of the
university.
·
Reasonable
steps must be followed to make sure the confidentiality of the faculty member
forwarding the grievance and s/he should be protected from victimization.
·
The
resolution process must be fair and impartial and records must be maintained in
a proper way.
Additionally the teacher orientation and
socialization which starts right after s/he apply for a job (Shahzad, Khan
& Shah, 2015) should not be taken for granted and grievance handling
procedures should be made clear to all the new entrants.
c. Office
Environment and Resources: Office environment and resources include the
physical office environment, ergonomics, availability of equipment i.e.
computers, printers, lab equipment, multimedia /overhead projector etc. It also
includes the support staff which reduces your work load particularly in
handling the petty issues like photocopying of notes, helping you to install
the technical devices etc. It is advised that sufficient number of Multimedia
Projectors, Printers etc. be available for the faculty. Each department should
have its own technical staff to take care of these machines on regular basis.
Backup equipment be available to be utilized in emergency. The departments be
provided with equipment and support staff (peons) corresponding to the number
of faculty members inducted.
Furthermore the offices should be ergonomically
designed, with smart office setup to avoid the problems of backache, headache,
eye irritations and other problems of muscles and bones due to improper
workstation and lighting/heating/cooling arrangements.
d. Supportive
Relationships: Supportive
relationships, togetherness and lack of conflict with co-workers are considered
as a faculty’s best assetto overcome isolation and overload which is usually
considered a major cause of faculty stress.
Some other recommendations based on personal
observations and interviews include:
·
Recognition
and appreciation of even small achievements in public based on equity.
·
Unnecessary
supervision and control which hurts the ego should be reduced at bare minimum
level and less intrusive means should be used wherever required.
·
Ensure
proper time management at top level and unnecessary marathon meetings be
avoided particularly after office hours.
·
Unnecessary
intrusion into the personal life of employees be reduced unless it is required
in special cases where it challenges the organizational culture.
·
Faculty
from other cities be provided with appropriate accommodation as it has been
observed one of the important sources of stress. Though its not occupational
stress but its negative effects are trickled down to the performance of the
employees.
·
Arrangement
of transport facilities for pick & drop and official assignments should be
streamlined.
·
Appropriate
orientation be provided to all faculty on regular basis to clarify the
procedures regarding dealing with other departments e.g. re-imbursement of
bills, etc.
·
Time
pressure be reduced and enough time be given to faculty to carry on with their
transactional academic assignments e.g. paper checking, marks uploading etc.
·
Appropriate
parking and café’ arrangements specifically for faculty be arranged.
·
Special
arrangements for female sports, aerobics etc. as they can’t enjoy the same as
male faculty members can do in open play grounds
·
Finally,
small signs such as words of gratitude during formal gatherings, informal tea
clubs, excursion trips and back rubs can help to raise a sense of companionship
among teachers.
There are many other individual level effective
strategies for overcoming the negative impacts of stress. These include
Usually for teachers, drawing a perfect line of
separation between work & personal time is difficult as teachers are used
to with bringing office work to home e.g. (numerical assessment of students’
assignments/quizzes, lecture preparation, deadlines to submit research
papers/projects). However effective time management strategies can help them to
overcome such issues and the habit of procrastination as well. Unforeseen
commitments and disturbances must be avoided during office hours so maximum
time can be dedicated to office affairs while their stay at the campus. In this
way, they can have sufficient leisure time to enjoy with friends and family
after the office hours particularly during the weekends.
Study
Limitations & Suggestions for Future
From the empirical study perspective, this
exploratory research study is subject to some limitations which includes a
smaller sample size from only one public sector university, convenience based
sampling, less number of female faculty members, data collection just at a
point of time rather than a longitudinal research design. We focused more on
questionnaires (quantitative methods) and less on interviews and cross
sectional data from the office bearers such as Registrar and HR offices. Such
inputs/data if involved in the study are definitely invaluable but it was not
possible to exhaust these sources due to some administrative bottlenecks and
dearth of resources. Summing up, these study limitations were because of
limited finances and time constraints. Larger number of respondents if selected
randomly from various public sector universities would have been considered as
more pragmatic research design, which in turn would have led to more
generalizable results. For future research in this domain, we suggest to use
triangulation strategy, the data should be collected over a period of time,
causal relationships should be studied and advanced quantitative & quantitative
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