Occupational Stress and Stress Management among IT Employees: A Study Using Occupational Stress Index Scale Questionnaire

Introduction: Employees in IT organizations are often under the heavy work pressure to deliver the services efficiently and to remain cost-effective. The expectations of customers in terms of skill needed for jobs processing keep changing and force them to keep upgraded very fast as per the customer's demands. At times IT employees are forced to change the entire paradigms amidst constant uncertainty and high risk. Such working conditions lead to high work stress among the employees. Today, many organizations have started recognizing higher occupational stress as an area to address because of the increasing rate of attrition prevalent in the IT sector. Materials and Methods: The present study is descriptive in nature and focuses on the impact of occupational stress on employees in the IT sector. The total sample comprised of ۳۰۰ respondents in all ۱۵۰ from Chandigarh and ۱۵۰ from Pune respectively. Respondents from the IT organizations were a part of the study. A stratified random sampling technique was employed to select the respondents. Results: The result of study shows that occupational stress index where causes of occupational stress are concerned found that work overload, paucity of information, contradictory instructions regarding work, monotonous nature of assignments, less salary in comparison to the quantum of labor/work, working under tense circumstances, colleagues and subordinates trying to defame and malign one as unsuccessful, seldom being rewarded for hard labor and efficient performance, assignments being risky and complicated, having to dispose of work hurriedly, having to produce more work than usual, bearing responsibility for the progress and prosperity of the organization, higher authorities not giving due significance to one's post and work, feeling that the job makes life cumbersome, being busy with official work, unclear expectations of higher authorities, doing work that ought to be done by others and inability to carry out assignments are the main causes that have affected the IT employees in our sample at workplace. Additionally, one major finding of our study is that the employees working in IT organizations in Chandigarh seem to be experiencing more occupational stress than those working in Pune IT organizations. Conclusion: The present study indicates that, Management of stress is the process related to eradicating the problem of occupational stress among the employees. With a view to developing an effective stress management program, it is required to recognize the factors that are central to employees' efforts of controlling their occupational stress.