WORK RELATED STRESS AND ITS CAUSES IN DASHEN BANK S.C.

Abstract

This paper is entitled, “Work stress and its causes in Dashen bank.”, and conducted with the aim of examining major causes of stress in the bank, major symptoms observed, coping mechanisms employees used and stress management strategies adopted by the management of the bank with a particular reference of Dashen bank SC., Addis Ababa area branches. The study was a descriptive study using both qualitative and quantitative method to collect data from randomly selected 360 employees and 19 managers working in purposively selected 45 Dashen bank branches found in Addis Ababa city administration. Using questionnaire and interview, the researcher tried to identify answers for the research questions. Using questionnaire, employees perception towards major causes and symptoms of stress, employees coping mechanisms and stress management strategies that the bank is using were analyzed. By using structured interview, the managers’ perception towards stress, stress prevention and management strategies they are using were analyzed. In attempting to determine the major causes of work stress, pressure to work for long hour, lack of autonomy to decide on how they execute their own work and inability to take a sufficient brake are the first top three causes of stress. Among the given physical, psychological and behavioral symptoms observed, the psychological one is highest in the bank. Feeling of insecurity, restlessness and anger are the top psychological symptoms of stress that the employees experienced. There are no formal stress management strategies in the bank. But, the management of the bank uses some irrelevant measures such as temporary leave of absent and usage of risk management policy that can be considered as a stress management strategies. The researcher concluded that the existence of work stress in the bank is certain and its level also is exceeding the tolerable limit. Since there is no stress management strategy in the bank, the necessity of establishment of stress audit committee that can work on further in-depth study on the subject matter and development of stress management strategies with its urgency of paramount importance.