Development of new technology, globalisation of economy and international competition have compelled the organisations to outperform by providing high quality products and services, implementing new production process and supporting innovations. The consumers’ demands and expectations are also high. As a result employees have intense pressure for high organisational performance. They are expected to do multi tasking, meet the job requirements and acquire additional skills. All of these challenges lead to high stress for the employees. The various stressors can result in physical, psychological and/or behavioural deviations for employees. Since stress affect the productivity of the employees, organizations should give prime importance to support the employees to cope up with stress

Selye (1976) ^[1] has defined stress as the non-specific response of the body to any demands made upon it (Selye, 1976) ^[1]. His model view stress as an internal response where continued and prolonged stress may result in fatigue and tension leading to depression and anxiety (Selye, 1946) ^[2]. Stress is defined as any circumstance that places special physical and/or psychological demands on a person such that an unusual or out of the ordinary response occurs (Dipboye et. al, 1994)^[3]. Parkes (1989) ^[4]stated that stress was a relationship between an individual and the environment where as Robbins (2001) ^[5] defines stress as a dynamic condition in which the individual is confronted with an opportunity, constraint or demand related to what he or she desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important. Stress can be caused by environmental, organizational and individual variables (Matteson et al., 1999^[6]; Cook et al., 2001) ^[7].Stress may not be always negative. Eustress result in stimulating and enhancing work performance. But distress results in negative effects. It affects the worker’s health and work performance. This directly affects the company’s performance.

Job- Related Stress

Job-related stress is of growing concern because of its significance in economic implications of the organizations. Job stress is different from general stress as along with individual element it also has organizational and job related elements. Caplan et al. (1975) ^[8] stated that stress refers to any characteristics of the job environment which pose a threat to the individual. Job-Related Stress is the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker (Sauter et al., 1999) ^[9]. Job stress can be defined as an employee’s awareness or feeling of personal dysfunction as a result of perceived conditions or happenings in the workplace, and the employee’s psychological and physiological reactions caused by these uncomfortable, undesirable, or threats in the employee’s immediate workplace environment (Montgomery et al., 1996) ^[10].

Job stressors may refer to any characteristics of the work place that poses a threat to the individual (French et al., 1972) ^[11]. Cooper et al. (1978) ^[12] reported that stress occur when the environmental demands were larger than the employees' abilities and the environmental supplies were smaller than the employees' expectations. Dewe et al. (1990) [^13] stated stress as relationship between the person and their work environment, as appraised by the person as demanding or exceeding his or her resources, as well as endangering his or her own well-being. Job stress can also be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 2002) ^[14]. Job stress is the extent to which employees feels a tension of anxiety caused by their jobs (Gill, et al., 2006) ^[15].

RESEARCH PROBLEM:

The role workplace stress plays are adversely affecting employee productivity, absenteeism, and related work out comes (Rahman et al., 1995) ^[16]. Stress if not managed properly will affect an individual's productivity, effectiveness, personal health and quality of work. Each of these factors results in extensive cost to employees themselves, organization in which they work and society as a whole (Spielberger et al., 1994) ^[17]. Job stress alone costs American business an estimated $200 billion annually, the UK Pounds 63 billion and Australia $15 billion. These are the cost they incur for compensation claims, reduced productivity, absenteeism, and health insurance costs and direct medical expenses for stress related problems and illnesses (Savery et al., 2000) ^[18]. According to Miller et al. (1997) ^[19] stress among employees contribute to 50% of employee burnout and 40% of employee turnover.

Moore (2000) ^[20]states that increased environmental stressors may cause employee burnout. A study conducted by the American Institute on Stress (2005) reveals the following consequences: (a) Forty percent of turnover was caused by stress and (b) Sixty to eighty percent of workplace accidents occurred due to job stress. Tombaugh and White (1990) ^[21] indicated that during the organizational change, the employees have to take more of a work load, which caused employees' job stress. Thus stress leads to increase in turnover of employees, employee burnout and high rate of accidents and increase in overall expense of the organization. Individuals in service industries face particularly stressful work situations.

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, 2002) ^[14], job stress has become a costly problem in the workplace. NIOSH listed several occupations as highly stressful. The effect of job stress leads to physical and mental health problems of employees. Job stress victims show lack of confidence, low motivation at workplace, increased blood pressure, job dissatisfaction and intention to leave the job. Stress reduces the effectiveness of the organisation, leads to high desertion rates and low morale (Jimmieseon et al., 2004) ^[22]. Therefore, stress management is essential in an organisation to cope up with and resolve stress.

These studies on stress show how stress is negatively affecting the employees, their performance and the organisations as a whole. There are several studies on stress. However very few research have compared the stress level of employees and their demographic variables. Therefore, the current study is an attempt to relate the demographic variables such as gender, age, education and designation with their job-related stress. Hence the following hypotheses were formulated. Further, even though there are studies of stress in banking sector, no studies have determined the stress level of employees of different sectors of banks.

It is hypothesised thus

H1 : There exists a relationship between age and Job-Related Stress.

H2 : There exists a relationship between education and Job-Related Stress.

H3 : There exists a relationship between designation and Job-Related Stress.

H4: There exists a relationship between gender and Job-Related Stress.

H5 : Job-Related Stress differs among employees of different sectors of banks.

METHOD AND MATERIAL:

Sampling Design

Multi stage sampling was employed for the present study At the first stage three sectors of banks were chosen, taking into consideration the different features of the three sectors of banks. They were private sector banks, public sector banks and new generation banks. At the second stage two banks each from each group of the above banks were chosen and at the third level ten branches from each banks (60 branches) were chosen through lottery method for data collection. Researcher collected 337 sample from the employees of the afore mentioned branches.

Measures

Job Related Tension Index (JRTI)

Job-Related Stress is taken in the study as the scores obtained by the respondents on the Job-Related Tension Index (JRTI) developed by Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn and Snoek (1964) ^[23]. This scale evaluate psychological indications of stress, such as feeling of over burdened with work, not having the adequate resources and tools to complete given tasks or projects, and usually being incapable to handle all of the work. The theoretical framework that forms the basis for this measure proposes that role conflict and role ambiguity result in job stress and tension (Kahn et al., 1964) ^[23]. The job-related tension index is a 17 item scale. It measures the stress on a five point Likert scale from 1=strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree. The index score is determined by adding the responses. Higher scores indicated higher perceived occupational stress. Cronbach alpha of JRTI has been tested and found to be 0.86.

Individual level variables

Male and Female employees of banks represented the gender. Age was measured in years and their variable included four levels -20-30, 30-40, 40-50and 50-60. Educational levels were categorized under five heads Under Graduates, Graduates, Post Graduates, Professional graduates and others. As there is no homogeneity in the designations in different banks, the employees were categorized on the basis of their designation into three levels - Entry level, middle level and higher level. Entry level employees are those coming under the clerical staff and assistant managers, middle level includes those employees in the managerial level above assistant managers and higher level, employees in the senior manager, chief manager and branch manager category.

Demographics of the Sample

Out of the 337 respondents, sixty one percent were on average age of less than forty years and thirty nine percent were between forty to sixty years. Thirty four per cent of the respondents were females and sixty six per cent were males. Seventy eight percent of the respondents were either graduates or post graduates. Forty eight percent were in the entry level, twenty one percent in the middle level and thirty one percent in higher level.

ANALYSIS AND RESULT:

The descriptive statistics of job-related stress in different sectors of banks-private sector bank, public sector bank and new generation banks were calculated. Hypotheses were tested using one -way ANOVA. Further post-hoc test were also conducted.

Age and Job-Related Stress

Table 1 shows that the mean percentage score of job-related stress is seemed to be lowest for the age group 40-50 and it is 38.44% . 50-60 age group showed a mean score of 39.94%, 20-30 age groups showed a mean score of 43.58 and 30-40 age group should a highest mean sore of 76.78% an 43.97. From this it can be concluded that there is variation in mean score of job related stress between different age groups. To verify the difference that has been observed in mean percentage score is significant or not one way ANOVA (F-test) was conducted.

Table 1-Mean, Mean % Score and Standard Deviation of Job-Related Stress of employees of different age group

Age group		Job-Related Stress
20-30	Mean	37.04
	Mean % Score	43.58
	Std. Deviation	10.58
30-40	Mean	37.37
	Mean % Score	43.97
	Std. Deviation	9.29
40-50	Mean	32.68
	Mean % Score	38.44
	Std. Deviation	7.78
50-60	Mean	33.95
	Mean % Score	39.94
	Std. Deviation	11.53
Total	Mean	35.77
	Mean % Score	42.08
	Std. Deviation	10.30

Table 2 clearly indicates that there exist significant differences among different age group as far as job-related stress is concerned (F=3.606, p value = 0.014) implying that the job-related stress dependent on age group of employees.

Now to verify which ever groups have significant difference, Post Hoc multiple comparison tests were conducted. The result of the test shows that only 30-40 age groups have significant difference with 40-50 age groups. All the other age groups do not have any significant difference.

Table2-One Way ANOVA showing the relationship between Age and Job-Related Stress

		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Job-Related Stress	Between Groups	1121.548	3	373.849	3.606	.014
	Within Groups	34525.859	333	103.681
	Total	35647.407	336

Table 3-Post-Hoc analysis of Age and Job-Related Stress of bank employees

Dependent Variable	(I) Age group	(J) Age group	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.	95% Confidence Interval
Dependent Variable	(I) Age group	(J) Age group	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.	Lower Bound	Upper Bound
Job-Related Stress	20-30	30-40	-.33102	1.42644	.996	-4.0142	3.3521
		40-50	4.36540	1.90770	.103	-.5604	9.2912
		50-60	3.09417	1.47042	.154	-.7025	6.8909
	30-40	20-30	.33102	1.42644	.996	-3.3521	4.0142
		40-50	4.69643	1.89195	.045	-.1887	9.5815
		50-60	3.42519	1.44993	.086	-.3186	7.1690
	40-50	20-30	-4.36540	1.90770	.103	-9.2912	.5604
		30-40	-4.69643	1.89195	.045	-9.5815	.1887
		50-60	-1.27124	1.92533	.912	-6.2425	3.7001
	50-60	20-30	-3.09417	1.47042	.154	-6.8909	.7025
		30-40	-3.42519	1.44993	.086	-7.1690	.3186
		40-50	1.27124	1.92533	.912	-3.7001	6.2425

* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

Education and Job-Related Stress

One way ANOVA shows that there is no significant difference between different education level and job-related stress as the p value is 0.219 (F= 1.446). This means that educational level of employees in banks have no influence on their stress level.

Table 4-One Way ANOVA showing the Educational Level and Job-Related Stress

		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Job-Related Stress	Between Groups	610.264	4	152.566	1.446	.219
	Within Groups	35037.143	332	105.534
	Total	35647.407	336

Designation and Job-Related Stress

The relationship between job related stress and designation was determined through, one-way ANOVA. Table 5 shows that there is no significant difference between different designation and job-related stress. The p value is 0.461 (F= 0.776). This means that designation of employees in banks do not affect their stress level.

Table 5-One Way ANOVA showing the designation and Job-Related Stress

		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Job-Related Stress	Between Groups	164.811	2	82.406	.776	.461
	Within Groups	35482.595	334	106.235
	Total	35647.407	336

Gender and Job-Related Stress

Z-test was conducted to test the alternative hypothesis (H4). The Z value obtained is-1.726 and the p-value was 0.085. So the null hypothesis (H4) is accepted. In other words male and female employees do not perceive job- related stress differently.

Table 6-Z-Test showing the relationship between Gender and Job-Related Stress

	Gender	Mean	Std. Deviation	Mean % Score	Z	Sig. (2-tailed)
Job-Related Stress	Male	36.46	9.88	42.90	1.726	.085
Job-Related Stress	Female	34.42	10.99	40.50

Employees of Different Sectors of banks and Job-Related Stress

The mean percentage score of the job-related stress for the private sector bank is 42.95%, public sector is 38.39% and the new generation bank is 44.83% which shows that there is a variation in job-related stress among the three sectors of banks. To verify the difference that has been observed in mean percentage score is significant or not one way ANOVA (F-test) was conducted. The result of one way ANOVA is shown in Table 8. It clearly indicates that there exist significant differences in job-related stress in different sectors of banks (F=9.002, p value < 0.001) implying that the job- related stress varies among employees of different sectors of bank.

Table 7-showing the descriptive statistics of Job-Related Stress in different sectors of banks

Sector		Job-Related Stress
Private	Mean	36.50
	Mean % Score	42.95
	Std. Deviation	10.61
Public	Mean	32.63
	Mean % Score	38.39
	Std. Deviation	10.11
New Generation	Mean	38.11
	Mean % Score	44.83
	Std. Deviation	9.51
Total	Mean	35.77
	Mean % Score	42.08
	Std. Deviation	10.30

Table 8-One Way ANOVA showing the relationship between Employees of different sectors of bank and Job-Related Stress

		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Job-related stress	Between Groups	1823.190	2	911.595	9.002	<.001
	Within Groups	33824.217	334	101.270
	Total	35647.407	336

Now to verify which ever sectors of banks have significant difference, Post Hoc multiple comparison tests were conducted. The result of the test shows that Public sector banks have significant difference with new generation banks.

Table 9-Post-Hoc analysis of Employees of Different sectors of Banks and Job Related Stress

Dependent Variable	(I) Sector	(J) Sector	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.	95% Confidence Interval
Dependent Variable	(I) Sector	(J) Sector	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.	Lower Bound	Upper Bound
Job- related stress	Private	Public	3.87644^*	1.36406	.013	.6651	7.0877
	Private	New Generation	-1.60448	1.34740	.459	-4.7765	1.5676
	Public	Private	-3.87644^*	1.36406	.013	-7.0877	-.6651
	Public	New Generation	-5.48093^*	1.32182	.001	-8.5928	-2.3691
	New Generation	Private	1.60448	1.34740	.459	-1.5676	4.7765
	New Generation	Public	5.48093^*	1.32182	.001	2.3691	8.5928

* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

DISCUSSION:

This study focused on two aspects :a) whether there is a relation between demographic variables viz. age, education, designation and gender and job related stress and b)whether Job-Related Stress differs among employees of different sectors of banks.

Demographic Variables and Job Related Stress

In a study among male executives Reddy and Ramamurthy (1991) ^[24] concluded that age related factors influenced the stress level of employees. Researchers like Virk et al. (2001) ^[25] also suggested that age had a strong impact on job stress. The present study also is in line with the above studies implying that the job related stress dependent on age group of employees. The result further shows that 30-40 age groups have comparatively high stress than employees of 40-50 age groups. This may be because this age group find it difficult to manage their work life balance. But in a study among the non-gazetted officers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Balakrishnamurthy et al. (2011) ^[26] stated that stress level were not affected significantly by age. Ansari (1991) ^[27] found out that the correlation between the nature of stress and qualification of agriculture university teachers in different position (professors, associate professors and assistant professors) were not significant. The present study is also consistent with this study. Sharma (2007) ^[28] highlighted that there is a positive correlation between occupational stress and job hierarchy among the defence personnel in Indian context However the present study shows that designation does not affect the stress level of bank employees. This may be because employees in all designation in banking sector have some kind responsibilities whether they are in higher level or lower level. The present study states that there is no gender difference in the perception of stress among the bank employees. Researchers like Aminabhavi et al. (2000) ^[29], Kyriacou et al. (2004) ^[30] etc. also reported that there is no difference in stress level among male and female employees.

Employees of Different Sectors of Banks and Job Related Stress

Though there are studies revealing the differences in the level of job stress among different industries, no studies were found in the literature explaining differences in job related stress among various sectors of same industry. The findings of the present study elucidate the possibilities for having differences in levels of job stress among different sectors of same industry as it was found that there is a difference in job related stress of employees of different sectors of the banking industry.

Job related stress differed among the three sectors of banks. So to identify which sectors have significant difference further analysis was conducted and the result showed that Public sector banks have significant difference with new generation banks. Compared to employees of public sector banks, employees of new generation banks have a very high stress level.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION:

The result of the study indicated that among the demographic variables, only the age of employees have significant relation with job related stress. Other demographic variables like designation, education and gender do not have any relationship with job related stress. It was further revealed that employees in the age group of 30-40 have high level of stress. The study also revealed that the job related stress varies among different sectors of banks. Public sector banks have low job related stress compared to new generation banks and private sector banks. The employees in private sector banks and new generation banks have high targets, deadlines and high pressure work atmosphere. Lack of job security can also be another reason of having high job stress. The stress of employees in private sector banks and new generation banks can be reduced by giving them adequate training and counselling to manage stress. Giving them achievable targets and some autonomy within their scope can enable the employees to reduce their job stress.

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