Perception and Stress – A Study on the impact of Stress among the BPO Employees using

Perceived Stress Scale

By:

By: Dr L.Vijayashree
Head-NewGen IEDC, ED Cell & Professor -MBA DEPT, BNMIT
and
Shishira Srinivasa
Part time Phd Research Scholar, BNMIT (VTU)

Abstract:

Stress is the one of the most frequently used expression in the present day by everyone irrespective of age
group, even school kids face stressful days owing to the fact of Covid crisis. Working professionals feel
stressful with the events and work schedule which has turned upside down in the recent days or rather months
too. Things have totally changed in this current situation, things have changed from coffee breaks, team
meetings in board rooms to a virtual meet up in Microsoft teams or skype. One has to become accustomed with
calling clients, having discussion with clients with lot of background noises at home. One has to adjust to home
environment and get adjusted to work without necessary acoustics at home.

Off-late many companies have provided the option of purchasing furniture for the employees’ comfortability;
however, this is not the situation with every company. Perception of work stress may have major implications
for employees and their everyday life. Research has emphasized stress as a variable affecting the individual in a
negative manner.

This study has been conducted to find out the level of stress using PSS Scale (10). The sample was based on
convenient sampling method and the questionnaire was distributed to 50 employees in a BPO. The responses
were analyzed and tabulated in the forthcoming pages.

1. Introduction:

Perceived stress is the feelings or thoughts that an individual has about how much stress they are under at a
given point in time or over a given time period.

Perceived stress incorporates feelings about the disorderliness and unpredictability of one’s life, how often one
has to deal with irritating troubles, how much change one is going through in one’s life, and confidence in one’s
ability to deal with problems or difficulties. It is not about calculating or speculating the types or frequencies of
stressful events which have happened to a person, but rather how an individual feels about the general stress of
their life and their ability to handle such stress.

However, not everyone who is exposed to this life changes experiences difficulties in adjusting or adapting or
experiences life dissatisfaction. Many individuals learn to adapt and adjust to life transitions successfully while
maintaining high levels of life satisfaction despite the increased stress level.

Based on a theory of stress and coping developed by Lazarus and Folkman (1984), stress is not simply events
that trigger negative emotional responses but it is a two-way process where individuals interact with their
environment. In other words, stress can affect individuals’ well-being or functioning negatively only when
individuals perceive the situation as stressful and their resources are inadequate to handle environmental stimuli
(e.g., exam, illness, break-up with a romantic partner, loss of loved one, financial strains; Roddenberry 2007).
 2. Review of Literature:

Lieberman (1978) reports that women, who report high numbers of stressful life events, experience low levels
of life satisfaction whereas, women with lower levels of stress have high level of life satisfaction. They adapt
themselves to the situation and are satisfied quite easily which makes them less stressful and the ones who don’t
get satisfied with the changes easily get dissatisfied and are faced with more stress.

Gardiner (2006) found that perceived stress was negatively related with life satisfaction, and showed that age
and personality type had a major impact in whether a person was satisfied or dissatisfied. He also studied the
relationship between stress and subjective well-being of a person in relation to personality type (extroverted and
neurotic). He further explored and concluded that as stress levels increased, levels of life satisfaction decrease.

Tremblay et al. (2006) studied the role of subjective vitality and the perception of stress as mediators between
general life satisfaction and post-traumatic physiological and psychological health. They found that satisfaction
with life positively predicted subjective vitality and negatively predicted perceived stress.

There is enough evidence to show the unintended effect of perceived stress on life satisfaction. For instance,
studies have showed the negative effects of stress on health, social ties and other related variables which can
decline life satisfaction. For instance, House et al. (1979) stated that perceived stress is associated with ill-
health, while Totman (1979) stated that greater reduction in socialization results in stressful life events.

Hawkley et al. (2005) studied the effect of stress on age-related physiological capacities. These were found to
be affected not only by individual differences, but also by responses and recovery from stressful experiences.

Results from a survey of Institute of Management members (UMIST/Institute of Management, 1997) had
concluded 16 per cent of managers said that they had taken time off work because of stress in the last 12
months. Those at lower levels of management were more likely to have taken time off than senior managers and
faced more stress.

3. Methodology:

The Perceived Stress Scale – was a tool developed in the early 1980s, it’s a measure of the degree of stress a
person feels about their life. It tests how unpredictable, overwhelming and uncontrollable the subject feels
they’re in the last one month.

Data was collected from a sample of 50 employees working in BPO sector and who are currently working from
home due to the covid stress, and PSS scale was used to determine the stress faced by them over the last month.

Perceived stress was defined as the degree to which situations in one’s life are appraised as stressful (Cohen et
al., 1983), and it was measured with Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10; Cohen & Williamson,1988). The PSS-
10 was designed to assess the degree to which life in general is perceived as uncontrollable, overloading, and
unpredictable during the past month.
The PSS has been used in many studies as a self-report measure of perceived stress in a majority of fields since
its development (see Gitchel, Roessler, and Turner, 2011: 22 for a review). It has been used in a wide range of
settings with general and clinical populations to demonstrate acceptable psychometric properties for evaluating
perceived stress (see Remor, 2006: 87 for a review), associations with established measures of anxiety, stress,
coping, depression, and other physiological responses (for reviews, see Demir, 2009: 104; Mimura and
Griffiths, 2004: 380).

The PSS10 queries respondents as to how often over the past month they have felt or thought about each of the
10 items on a 5-point Likert scale (0 = never, 1 = almost never, 2 = sometimes, 3 = fairly often, and 4 = very
often). Six of the items are negatively worded (e.g., “How often have you been upset because of something that
happened unexpectedly?”) and four are positively worded (e.g., “How often have you felt that you were on top
of things?”). A total PSS10 score is obtained by reverse scoring the four positively worded items, then adding
the scores for all 10 items. A higher total score indicates a higher level of perceived stress.

4. Data Analysis and Interpretation

The sample was tested for reliability using Reliability Calculator created by Del Siegle and the result is as
follows:

Cronbach's Alpha 0.7285576

Split-Half with Spearman-Brown 0.80123135
Adjustment
Mean for Test 33.48
Standard Deviation for Test 6.48456629

Table 4.1

Result:

Cronbach alpha values of 0.7 or higher indicate acceptable internal consistency. We see that it is 0.728 which
indicates that this test was found to be reliable. Higher the split half with Spearman Brown adjustment, higher
the reliability. Here it is higher with a score of 0.80123 which indicates that it is highly reliable.

A mean scale score is the average performance of a group of sample population on an assessment. The
indication is that higher the Mean score, higher the expectation.

Standard deviation is a measure of the average distance between the values of the data in the set and the mean.
A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the mean; a high standard
deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a large range of values.
Graphical representation of the data

Q1. How often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 - Never 0 1 0%
2 - Almost
10 2 20.00%
Never
3 - Neutral 14 3 28.00%
4 - Fairly Often 26 4 52.00%
5 - Very Often 0 5 0%
Weighted Score : 3.32
Total
50
Responses

Table 4.2

Interpretation: The graph clearly indicates that 52 percent of the people feel that they were upset because of
something that happened unexpectedly. Which means more than half of the people feel about stress the same
way.

Q2. In your job, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important
things?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 – Never 0 1 0%
2 - Almost
24 2 48.98%
Never
3 - Neutral 3 3 6.12%
4 - Fairly Often 22 4 44.90%
5 - Very Often 0 5 0%
Weighted Score : 2.96
Total
49
Responses

Table 4.3

Interpretation: in the above graph we can make out that equal set of people have selected that they were able
to control the important things and the other half have equally said they didn’t have control over the things.
Q3. In your job, how often have you felt nervous and “stressed”?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 – Never 0 1 0%
2 - Almost
15 2 31.25%
Never
3 - Neutral 5 3 10.42%
4 - Fairly Often 27 4 56.25%
5 - Very Often 1 5 2.08%
Weighted Score : 3.29
Total
48
Responses

Table 4.4

Interpretation: the above graph indicates that 56 percent of the people have felt nervous and stressed in their
jobs very often.

Q4. How often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal
problems?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 – Never 1 1 2.00%
2 - Almost
18 2 36.00%
Never
3 - Neutral 1 3 2.00%
4 - Fairly Often 29 4 58.00%
5 - Very Often 1 5 2.00%
Weighted Score : 3.22
Total
50
Responses

Table 4.5

Interpretation: The above graph indicates 58 percent of the people are confident about handling their personal
problems in spite of facing stress. And nearly 36 percent of the people have said they aren’t able to handle their
personal problems.
Q5. How often have you felt that things were going your way?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 – Never 0 1 0%
2 - Almost
19 2 38.00%
Never
3 - Neutral 8 3 16.00%
4 - Fairly Often 21 4 42.00%
5 - Very Often 2 5 4.00%
Weighted Score : 3.12
Total
50
Responses

Table 4.6

Interpretation: This question has an almost equal response of 42 percent and 38 percent of people respectively
indicated that they felt things were going their way and were favorable to them and the other half said they
weren’t sure of things going their way.

Q6. How often have you found that you could not cope with responsibilities of your job?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 – Never 1 1 2.08%
2 - Almost never 12 2 25.00%
3 - Neutral 6 3 12.50%
4 - Fairly Often 24 4 50.00%
5 - Very Often 5 5 10.42%
Weighted Score : 3.42
Total
48
Responses

Table 4.7

Interpretation: The graph indicates half of the sample that is 50 percent were not able to cope up with their
responsibilities at their job. And 25 percent of the population indicated that they were able to cope up with the
responsibilities.
Q7. How often have you been able to control irritations in your job?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 – Never 0 1 0%
2 - Almost
12 2 24.49%
Never
3 - Neutral 5 3 10.20%
4 - Fairly Often 30 4 61.22%
5 - Very Often 2 5 4.08%
Weighted Score : 3.45
Total
49
Responses

Table 4.8

Interpretation: A fairly 61 percent of people have indicated that they don’t get irritated at their job and are able
to control their irritations. They are able to adjust and adapt to the changes to the situation and are able to
control their emotions thereby not getting stressed.

Q8. How often have you felt that you were on top of things?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 – Never 0 1 0%
2 - Almost
10 2 20.00%
Never
3 - Neutral 9 3 18.00%
4 - Fairly Often 28 4 56.00%
5 - Very Often 3 5 6.00%
Weighted Score : 3.48
Total
50
Responses

Table 4.9

Interpretation: The graph indicates that nearly 56 percent of people felt that they were top on things fairly
often. This answer almost supports the previous question and indicates that no matter what the situation is and
how often it changes 56 percent of people are quite able to stay on top of things.
Q9. How often have you been angered because of things that were outside of your control?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 – Never 1 1 2.00%
2 - Almost
15 2 30.00%
Never
3 - Neutral 9 3 18.00%
4 - Fairly Often 23 4 46.00%
5 - Very Often 2 5 4.00%
Weighted Score : 3.20
Total
50
Responses

Table 4.10

Interpretation: We have a set of around 46 percent of the population who were angered very often because
things were out of their control and the situations made them stressed and about 30 percent of people felt they
were able to control their anger even when the situations were uncontrollable.

Q10. How often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not
overcome them?
Answer Responses Value % Percentage of total respondents
1 – Never 0 1 0%
2 - Almost
4 2 8.33%
Never
3 – Neutral 16 3 33.33%
4 - Fairly Often 25 4 52.08%
5 - Very Often 3 5 6.25%
Weighted Score : 3.56
Total
48
Responses

Table 4.11

Interpretation: Half of the sample exactly 52 percent of the population indicated that they could not overcome
the difficulties and often felt that they were piling up and difficult to control. Whereas almost 33 percent of
them were neutral about the situation indicating that they were unaffected by the difficulties that were piling up.
Descriptive Statistics

Mea Media Mod Mi Ma Std.De

Sum
n n e n x v
Q1
166.0 2.0
How often have you been upset because of something 3.32 4.00 4.00 4.00 0.79
0 0
that happened unexpectedly?
Q2
145.0 2.0
In your job, how often have you felt that you were 2.96 3.00 2.00 4.00 0.98
0 0
unable to control the important things?
Q3
158.0 2.0
In your job, how often have you felt nervous and 3.29 4.00 4.00 5.00 0.94
0 0
“stressed”?
Q4
161.0 1.0
How often have you felt confident about your ability to 3.22 4.00 4.00 5.00 1.04
0 0
handle your personal problems?
Q5
156.0 2.0
How often have you felt that things were going your 3.12 3.00 4.00 5.00 0.98
0 0
way?
Q6
164.0 1.0
How often have you found that you could not cope 3.42 4.00 4.00 5.00 1.05
0 0
with responsibilities of you job?
Q7
169.0 2.0
How often have you been able to control irritations in 3.45 4.00 4.00 5.00 0.91
0 0
your job?
Q8
174.0 2.0
How often have you felt that you were on top of 3.48 4.00 4.00 5.00 0.89
0 0
things?
Q9
160.0 1.0
How often have you been angered because of things 3.20 3.50 4.00 5.00 0.99
0 0
that were outside of your control?
Q 10
171.0 2.0
How often have you felt difficulties were piling up so 3.56 4.00 4.00 5.00 0.74
0 0
high that you could not overcome them?

Table 4.12
 5. Findings and Conclusion:

1. On a negative side, the finding clearly indicates that 52 percent of the people feel that they were upset
because of something that happened unexpectedly. Which means more than half of the people feel about
stress the same way. Half of them felt things were not in their control and felt stressed, and they felt
nervous and stressed.

2. More than half of the people felt that things were piling up in their life and they started feeling
difficulties and they were mostly angered by the changes in situation that was uncontrollable.

3. On the positive side, more than 50 to 60 percent of the sample indicated that they always stayed on top
of things and they were also able to control their irritations in the job.

4. Also, an almost equal proportion of the sample indicated that things were going their way and the half of
them indicated that things weren’t going their way.

5. Similarly, we could make out that an equal set of people have indicated that they were able to control the
important things and the other half have equally said they didn’t have control over the things.

Conclusion:

For most challenging situations stress is not an automatic reaction. A situation which may seem stressful to one
may not be stressful to another. Hence, we define it as perceived stress. It also depends on how threatening the
particular situation is. Past research has indicated that 85% of the things one worries about, never happen,
indicating that most of the times its we who create stress due to the changing situations and the turnaround of
events make us think and perceive that way.

Research also indicated that one’s personality traits can be a factor in stress and that our perception of ourselves
and the world in general is partly linked to our personality. It is possible to change our perception from an
unrealistic, inaccurate one, to a more realistic and accurate assessment.

6. Suggestions:

1. Training should be made a must in the organizations as to how to cope up with stress and how to
manage situations, like decision making, critical thinking and creative thinking.

2. Employees must be made to do some power yoga session and the environment should be kept more
positive with positive vibes all over, as the study indicated that stress is all about how one perceives it.

3. Mostly work schedules and work timings make a employee more stressful, hence they must be changed
and flexible timings must be activated.

4. More recreational activities are to be provided to the employees to deal with workplace stress, thereby
relieving tension from the minds of the employees.
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Sukhumpong Channuwong, Strategies
for Reducing Stress among
Mnagers: An
Integrated Physical and Spiritual
Approach, Aug 2009, International
Journal of
Management Vol. 26 No. 2
7) Charles J. Hobson and Linda
Delunas, Efficacy of Different
Techniques for Reducing
Stress: A Study among Business
Students in the United States, August
2009, Vol. 26
No. 2, International Journal of
Management
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