MBA HR Project Report on Stress Management

Stress management is one of the burning issues nowadays. All human beings are
suffering from some or the other mental or physical ailments like the blood pressure,
heart attack, depression, ulcer, low concentration etc. Competition, availability of
manpower in bulk, increases in daily targets, globalization, diverse culture etc. are
the main reasons of stress. Stress management is desperately needed in the
corporate world which is shown by various studies:

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics -"neurotic reaction to stress" is the 4th disabling
workplace injury. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health-25% of those
surveyed said their job was the single greatest cause of stress in their life.

British Medical Journal- Studies-job stress may increase chances of coronary heart
disease. Job control and pressure were tested.

The facts mentioned above show that job is one of the major reasons of stress at
workplace so stress management tools should be there to cope up with adverse
situation. This study will help the corporate people to choose the best tools for
managing the stress so that they can become healthy physically as well as mentally
to contribute in the organizational goals effectively. As the study will be conducted
BPO industry so it will be beneficial for them to decrease in absenteeism, high
turnover, conflicts and increase productivity etc. The researchers can take benefits of
this study in further studies. The study is beneficial not only to BPO industries, but
also to the others, as they can analyze the causes and implement the suitable stress
management tools in their respective field.

Effective stress management is significant because it ensures that you are able to go
on with your life and get to enjoy every minute of it. Actually this is pretty hard to look
for something positive in a grave situation but, even at such a time, effective
management will seek to bring out the good and discard the negative.

Review of Existing Literature

Everyone wants stress-free life. Yet, stress is ubiquitous. Of course, cannot be
controlled by more nutrients as the real cause of stress is anxiety or pressure which
may ultimately lead to the neglect or proper dietary habits. Stress refers to the
circumstances that threaten ones well being and thereby tax ones coping abilities.

Stress is inevitable part of modern life. Stress has two faces. It is a good servant, but
a bad master. In other words, it can be ones best friend or worst enemy. A certain
amount of stress is necessary to achieve success. But, undue stress causes
distress.

Stress is received by different people differently. If two people experience the same
amount or pressure, one may be healthy while the other is sick. This is so because
our personalities do influence the level of stress.

The present days lifestyle breeds stress and tension. When tension lasts long,
depression sets in. Depression is characterized by feelings of sadness,
hopelessness and pessimism. In order to understand the facts related to stress
management one should undergo thorough study of existing literature. Here we
divide it at two levels:

Epidemiologist Bengt Arnetz (University of Uppsala, Sweden) has been studying

occupational stress for 20 years says, that in Sweden stress among doctors is such
that their mental energy has decreased and intellectual exhaustion [burnout]
increased to critical levels.

The study of Michael Marmot (University of London, UK) says that individual
perception also plays a roll in occupational stress that different employees perceive
and react differently in given situation of work environment, some with high stress
levels and some with low or even do not.

What is Stress :

The word 'stress' is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as "a state of affair involving
demand on physical or mental energy". A condition or circumstance (not always
adverse), which can disturb the normal physical and mental health of an individual.
In medical parlance 'stress' is defined as a perturbation of the body's homeostasis.
This demand on mind-body occurs when it tries to cope with incessant changes in
life. A 'stress' condition seems 'relative' in nature. Extreme stress conditions,
psychologists say, are detrimental to human health but in moderation stress is
normal and, in many cases, proves useful. Stress, nonetheless, is synonymous with
negative conditions.

Cooper (1997) summarizes stress as:

"everything that deprives the person of purpose and zest, that leaves him with
negative feelings about himself, with anxieties, tensions, a sense of lost ness,
emptiness and futility."

Statt (1994) draws attention to the physical response:

"The human body is biologically programmed to react to challenge from the

environment by mobilizing its resources. We can either confront the challenge and
fight it or get away from it as fast as possible. The choice in other words is 'fight or
flight', whichever we deem to be more appropriate in the situation."

Hence Stress is the response or reaction of ones body and/or mind to a real or
imaginary threat, event or change. The threat, event or change is commonly called
stressors. Stressors can be internal (thoughts, beliefs, attitudes or external (loss,
tragedy, change).

Types of Stress

Positive stress (or eustress) is the result of competent management and mature
leadership where everyone works together and everyone is valued and supported.
Positive stress enhances well-being and can be harnessed to enhance performance
and fuel achievement.
Negative stress (or distress) is the result of a bullying climate where threat, coercion
and fear substitute for non-existent management skills. Employees have to work
twice as hard to achieve half as much to compensate for the dysfunctional and
inefficient management. Negative stress diminishes quality of life and causes injury
to health. When people use the word "stress" on its own, they usually mean
"negative stress".

Effective Stress Management :

Effective stress management is concerned with:

Understanding stress, its sources, causes, symptoms and results;

Designing the work environment and different aspects of organization and
workplace practice so that the effect of stress can be minimized;
Creating the conditions in which specific issues can be dealt with quickly
when they become apparent; and
Recognizing the interaction between life at work, and that outside work; and
taking steps to understand the stresses and strains thus caused.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the delegation of one or more IT-intensive

business processes to an external provider that in turn owns, administers and
manages the selected process based on defined and measurable performance
criteria. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is one of the fastest growing segments
of the Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) industry. Certain tools to
reduce stress are very tangible: exercising more, eating healthy foods and talking
with friends. But there is another tool for helping you manage difficult times that can
be just as beneficial, albeit harder to pin down embracing your spirituality.

Spirituality has many definitions, but at its core spirituality helps to give our lives
context. It's not necessarily connected to a specific belief system or even religious
worship. Instead, it arises from your connection with yourself and with others, the
development of your personal value system, and your search for meaning in life. For
many, this takes the form of religious observance, prayer, meditation or a belief in a
higher power. For others, it can be found in nature, music, art or a secular
community. Spirituality is different for everyone.
Spirituality facilitates intra-personal relationships in practitioners. You come to know
and assess yourself more, and try to grow as a person. Thereby you become more
adept and more skillful in facing life's various situations.

So in this particular study spirituality has been taken as a major tool for stress
management in BPO industry due to various reasons which are as follows:-

Faith and the use of prayer and religion to manage stress may provide health
benefits for cancer survivors, University of California researchers reported at the
American Psychosomatic Society's annual meeting in Denver.

"Our findings suggest that spirituality may be protective of physical health," said
Carissa Low, UCLA psychology graduate student and lead author of the study.

We are looking at yoga consultants and mediation sessions to reduce their stress
levels, says the president of Call Centre Association of India, Sam Chopra.

Some BPOs have, however, welcomed the move. It may lead to more travel time,
but it will be safer for employees in the industry, says Harsh Vinayak, MD, Keane
BPO at Gurgaon.

Staying connected to your inner spirit and the lives of those around you can enhance
your quality of life, both mentally and physically. Remember that spirituality is a
dynamic process and a constantly evolving internal journey. Your personal concept
of spirituality may change with your age and life experiences, but it always forms the
basis of your well-being, helps you maintain a reasonable stress level and affirms
your purpose in life.

Focus of the Problem

Everyday speculation creates anxiety, fear, stress etc. employee stress has become
a major problem in most of the organization, and especially where there are
challenging targets are given and impossible deadlines to be met. Especially in BPO
industry due to target pressure, loss of social life, unusual timings, downsizing,
recession competition the employees suffer from greater workloads and work for
longer hours which results in decrease in concentrations of employees,
absenteeism, high turnover, hypertension, conflicts etc which eventually has a
severe impact on the productivity of the individual and thereby the organization. So it
becomes important to manage stress in an effective and efficient way. Hence the
present study focuses on major causes, symptoms and various ways to manage
stress .It concentrate on spirituality as one of the important tools for stress
management.

Objectives of the Study

To understand the concept of stress management.
To understand the causes and effect of stress.
To analyze the various tools of stress management
To analyze the role of spiritualism in stress management

Research Methodology

Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem. It may

be understood as a science how research is done scientifically. Research
methodology refers to the tools and the methods used for obtaining information for
the purpose of the research study. Research not only need to know how to develop
certain indices or tests, how to calculate the mean, the mode, median, how to apply
particular research techniques but also need to know which of these methods or
techniques are relevant and which are not and what would they mean and indicate
and why. All this means that it is necessary for the researcher to design his
methodology for his problem as the same way differ from problem to problem.

Nature of the Study

Nature of the Study basically defines what type of study it is. This study is descriptive
as well as exploratory in the nature as the study describe the state of affairs exists at
present. In other words, we can say that research uses the facts and information that
are already available. So the major purpose of the descriptive study is to make
descriptions using the existing information. This project is exploratory in the sense
that study has been done regarding causes, consequences and open ended
questions explored various new things.

Sample Size and Sampling

The sample size was 60 employees of Banking Sector in Haryana region and the
employees were randomly selected as per convenience.

Data Collection and Sources

The data was collected from primary and secondary sources. A survey of employees
at different levels of BPO industry was done with the help of structured
questionnaire.

Secondary data was collected through

Books related to the topic

HR magazines
Journals and
Internet