A Study of General Role Stress among IT/ITeS Professional in India

Abstract

IT/ITeS industry in India got tremendous boost in the past decade due to factors like liberalisation and globalisation of the Indian economy coupled with favourable government policies. This sector of the sunshine industry brought a new work environment and sea changes in the employment trends. Service providers characterized this sector by adhering to strict deadlines set by their customers, working in different time zones, interdependency in teams, multitasking, increased interaction with offshore clients and extended work hours. IT/ITeS professionals are constantly under pressure to deliver the services efficiently as well as to remain cost effective. The customer expectation in terms of skills required for processing jobs keeps changing and forces professionals to upgrade/adapt very fast to their demands. At times IT/ITeS professionals are forced to change the entire paradigms amidst constant uncertainty and high risk. These working conditions lead to high stress in the professionals. Organisations have started recognising high stress as a worthy area to address growing attrition rate prevalent in this sector. The research attempts to study the stress faced by IT/ITeS professionals (age group 22–28 years). Instrument on General Role Stress developed and standardized by Udai Pareek, was administered to 120 IT/ITeS professionals. The instrument measured level of four stressors viz. SRD, IRD, RB & Pin. Analysis of data rejected the hypothesis that there is no significant difference between the four stressors; level of RB was significantly higher.