“薩蒂揚軟件技術有限公司計算機服務”基于印度的軟件公司,在全球范圍內為客戶提供軟件解決方案。在全球經濟低迷時期印度軟件產業面臨許多問題。經濟危機在業內許多公司對許多方面都會產生一些影響。在競爭激烈的市場中生存管理人員會采用成本節約策略控制成本。這些成本節約策略和宏觀經濟條件會使管理內部的組織結構產生一定的壓力。員工之間的壓力最終減少了公司的生產力，引起了許多問題。管理這些問題,經理會議使用了一些壓力管理機制(如開放日，反過來將有助于減少員工和他們的經理之間的溝通差距，但是沒有人能夠減少工作壓力。在這份報告中，我批判性地分析組織中壓力的潛在因素,找出原因，為什么壓力管理機制沒有工作，沒有產生最好的結果。這里的一個大問題就是為什么提供的解決方案沒有讓管理人員的領導方法用于控制組織壓力。

“動態條件下個體面臨一個機會,一個需求,以及資源相關的個人欲望，結果被認為是不確定的和極為重要的。”

“Satyam Computer Services” an Indian based Software Company which provides software solutions for its clients globally. During the global economic downturn Indian software industry faced many problems. The economic crisis in the industry affected many companies on many fronts. To rein in costs and to survive in the competitive market managers adopted cost saving strategies. These costs saving strategies and the macroeconomic conditions added to the existing stressors which further lead to increase in stress levels in the organisation. The stress among the employees eventually reduced the productivity and caused more problems for the company. To manage these problems, managers used some stress management mechanisms like open house meetings which in turn would help to reduce the communication gap between the employees and their managers but none of them worked in reducing stress levels.

In this report I am critically analysing the potential factors for stress in the organization and finding out reasons as to why stress management mechanisms did not work or come out with best results. And also one of the big questions here is why the provided solutions did not work which leads me to also analyse the leadership approach which the managers used for reining stress in the organization.

Stress can be either good or bad (Robbins et al 2010). Most of the times we feel stress as a negative aspect but in the real world stress can also be positive. Small stressful situations in the organisations is good for employees, it helps to escape the dull routine.

“A dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an opportunity, a demand, or a resource related to what the individual desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important.”

From the above definition we can infer that stress is affiliated with demands and resources. Demands are the responsibilities, insistencies, uncertainties that people face in their daily life where as resources are individual abilities to resolve their demands. Researchers proved that an individual stress level depends up on balancing of his demands and resources.

We can find stressors everywhere either within the organisation or outside of organization (Bratton and Gold 2003). In addition to this individuals could also feel stressed out due to the influence of various groups that they come in contact with and also due to certain factors present within themselves. Figure 1 in the appendix shows the potential factors that can cause stress among the individual.

People become more anxious of their job during the recession period (Robbins et al 2010). This could be clearly seen in my organization, the global economic recession affected the Indian software industry as a whole, and the consequences were layoffs, pay cuts and dwindling orders. To stabilize on the cost front and to survive in the market mass layoffs took place in the organization which left the employees more anxious of their job.

“Big Layoffs for Indian Outsourcer Satyam, The Hyderabad-based company is handing out pink slips to 4,500 of its 51,000 workers” (Ghosh 2008).

There was a huge political uncertainty within the state about dividing the state, which had huge impact on the investments into the state. These political uncertainties lead to stress among the people and even Robbins et al (2010) stated the same that the political threats and changes can induce stress among the people.

In the interview given by chief minister to a leading news paper Business Line he told that.

“The ongoing agitation for the Telangana Statehood has had major impact on the investments into the State with several project promoters now re-considering their investments plans.”

Nothing is constant and of all the things in the world technology is one thing that gets outdated the first. Every second day we see new innovations and which is a challenge as the old technology gets obsolete everyday and it’s a menace for the employees which lead to a lot of effort to learn the new technology and also this continuous technological change act as a stressor for employees.

Macro-level aspects of the company like strategies adopted by the managers and the administrative policies in the organization can also act as potential stressors (Luthans 2008). As Luthans stated the implementation of cost cutting strategies in the organization like exemption on the telephone calls, cutting down on the leisure facilities like project dinners, performance based incentives, reduction on the insurance amount lead to increase in job dissatisfaction among the employees. The other stressors included No Job Security, Long work hours (9hrs 45min a day), Work overload, Frustration due to failure or constant breakdowns of ERP, Conflicts among inter personal and inter- team disagreements, Office politics, Routine work and tight deadlines. Adding to all “the tight deadlines” is the biggest stressor among the employees in the organization. Cooper (2005) research results proved that tight deadlines are the biggest cause for stress among IT employees.

Most of the employees in my organisation are married women; the dual-role syndrome and the competition in the industry lead to stress among women. The ‘dual-role’ syndrome can be a potential factor for causing stress among working married women (Bratton and Gold 2003). The study of Aziz (2004) on role stress also identified the same. Stressors at work place may actually depend on the person’s personality (Robbins et al 2010). Researchers found that person with Type A characteristics, external locus of control and low self-efficacy can feel more stress than the contraries.

Till now we have seen the potential factors for stress among the employees in the organization. Let’s now take a look at the consequence of stress.

The result of prolonged stress in the organization can be shown in a number of ways. The stress at work place causes job dissatisfaction, reduced productivity, increased absenteeism which in turn affected the turnover of the company. Figure 2 in the appendix shows the inverted- U relationship between stress and job performance. It shows that low to moderate level of stress helps to increase the performance of an individual. But the prolonged or high stress leads to low performance.

We have seen potential factors for stress and also seen how stress can affect the company’s profitability. Below I have talked about how we can manage or control stress levels.

It is not possible to eradicate stress from everyday life. Nevertheless, every person can manage stress in a satisfactory manner. Some of the effective strategies to reduce stress levels are “practising time-management proficiency, physical exercise, relaxation training and expanding social-support network.” (Robbins et al 2010)。

Most of the times stress is considered to be a personal problem but later it was identified to be a major health problem at workplace and it was mentioned that it is a province of management to provide mechanisms to reduce or eliminate stress among the employees (Bratton and Gold 2003). Management took measures to control stress among the employees and implemented mechanisms like open house meetings, suggestion boxes to reduce the communication gap between the senior managers and employees. Employees were also given the opportunity to express their concerns related to the operationalization of managerial decisions. But the results were not very good as the managers were more concerned about their deadlines or targets rather than worrying about the employee problems as they are keen believers that stress helps the employees meet deadlines. A survey conducted by Cooper showcased how the above statement was true. “The Cooper says that employers fail to treat stress in IT industry and his survey of 200 chief executives and company directors found that 92% believe stress helps staff meet deadlines and keeps their businesses running efficiently”

Overly managed or lack of leadership in the organization is the main reason for organizations failure (Bennis and Nanus 2003). I believe that lack of proper leadership skills among the managers is the main reason for failure in managing stress and job dissatisfaction among the employees which eventually affects organizational productivity and efficiency.

Let’s analyse which leadership approach will help the managers for reining stress in the organization.

Huczynski and Buchanan (2007) defined leadership as “the process of influencing the activities of an organised group in its efforts toward goal-setting and goal achievement.”

Even though leadership is part of a management role there is a significant difference in the way they do their operations (Huczynski and Buchanan 2007). Table 1 shows the key differences that actually。

Everyone agrees that leaders influence people and leadership imply influencing organised group to work for desired goals. However, there are different views from different theorists towards ways and means followed by leaders to influence people. Some theorists conceive that leaders use coercion to influence people while others conceive that because of their intelligence and concern for people they are able to influence people. Fleishman and Stogdill at Ohio state university conducted studies on behaviour of the leaders and identified two prominent leadership behaviours.

Later Blake and Mouton developed the Ohio state research and come up with Managerial Grid to determine the leadership style in the organization. Figure 3 in the appendix shows the managerial grid is a 9x9 matrix where x-axis shows concern for production and y-axis shows concern for people. From the managerial grid Blake and Mouton come up with four major leadership styles Team Management, Country club Management, Authority-obedience Management, Impoverished Management and Middle of the road management. From the managerial grid we can infer that the present leadership style in my organization is authority-obedience management as they are more inclined towards the targets and deadlines rather than focusing on major issues like employee stress. But according to Blake and Mouton the optimum leadership style for reducing the stress levels in the organization is Team Management which has the features of high concern for people and high concern for production.

To improve the leadership skills among the managers in the organization, we have to analyze the existing leadership theories and have to adopt a best leadership model that helps reduce stress among the employees in the organization.

Leadership theories like Ohio state studies, Fiedler’s model and path-goal theory are talking about the leaders who motivate their followers to accomplish the defined goals by clarifying role and task requirements, these types of leaders are called transactional leaders (Robbins et al 2010). We can call these types of people as a mentors rather than leaders. A Leader has to help employees in setting visions and strategies instead of just clarifying their roles and responsibilities. Leaders have to give confidence to their employees to trust and accompany them in achieving organizational goals. These types of leaders are called transformational leaders. Robbins et al (2010) defined a transformational leader as “Leaders who inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests and who are capable of having a profound and extraordinary effect on followers” According to Huczynski and Buchanan (2007) the aspects of the transformational leaders are。

Intellectual stimulation: It helps subordinates to think differently while solving the problems and achieving organizational goals. Under this type of leadership employees will not afraid to express their ideas in problem solving.
Idealised Influence: The leaders will elucidate and communicate the organization vision, objectives to the subordinates which help the organization to provide better customer service.

Individualized consideration: The transformational leaders will give personal attention to everyone and encourage team members to attain higher responsibilities.

Inspirational motivation: motivate employees to give higher preference to organizational interests than the self-interest.

Figure 4 in the appendix shows the range of leadership models and where each model stands. The aspects of transformational leadership individual consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealised influence are stand in the top right quadrant as most effective and active models which able to motivate employees and to perform their job well. Adoption of transformational leadership model will help organization to increase productivity, lower employee stress and increase job satisfaction among the employees (Robbins et al 2010).

The model above which defines the transformational aspects that has the features high concern for people and high concern for production by adopting this type of leadership model will help the organization to rein stress among the employees which leads to high productivity. The study conducted by Gill et al (2006) also proved that the transformational leadership helps to reduce stress among the employees in the organization.

Due to the economic and political conditions managers have implemented some cost saving strategies to rein the cost across the organization. I believe that implementing cost saving strategies is a good move. But the methods or ways how the managers are implementing play a major role in how stressful such changes are perceived. Stress in the organization leads to decrease in productivity and increased job dissatisfaction among the employees even the stress management mechanism has not shown any results to reduce stress. Lack of proper leadership in the organization leads to increase stress in the organization. To succeed and survive in the competitive market a strong leadership and strong management is optimum. The leaders need to create organizational goals and motivate organizational members to work towards the achievement of goals. We also need managers for planning, controlling and organizing the daily operations. I believe that Transformational leadership is the best approach for the organizations to reduce stress among the employees because transformational leaders give special attention to every individual and encourage them to think differently which helps employees to grow.

References:

Aziz M. (2004). Role stress among women in the indian information technology sector. Women in Management Review, 19, 356-363. Retrieved December 24, 2010, from the Emerald Management Reviews database.
Bennis W. G., & Nanus, B. (2003). Leaders: strategies for taking charge (2nd ed., 1st HarperBusiness Essentials ed.). New York: Harperbusiness Essentials.
Bratton J., & Gold, J. (2003). Health and Safety. Human resource management: theory and practice (3rd ed., pp. 164-170). New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cooper C. (n.d.). ComputerWeekly.com | Information Technology News & UK IT Jobs. ComputerWeekly.com | Information Technology News & UK IT Jobs. Retrieved December 21, 2010
Ghosh D. (2008, September 15). Big Layoffs for Indian outsourcer satyam. Business week. Retrieved December 25, 2010, from
Gill A. S., Flaschner, A. B., & Shachar, M. (2006). Mitigating stress and burnout by implementing transformational-leadership. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 18(6), 469-481. Retrieved December 24, 2010,
Huczynski A., & Buchanan, D. A. (2007). Leadership. Organizational behaviour: an introductory text (6th ed., pp. 694-729). Harlow, England: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Investments hit due to Telangana agitation. (2009, December 30). Business Line. Retrieved December 21, 2010, from
Luthans F. (2008). Organizational behavior (11th ed.). Boston, Mass.: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.