CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In this study we are going to look at what harm or good stress has done to workers and their performances in any establishment or organization.
It is a common feature that people as individual or group interact with their environment these experiences are carried into the organizations, which may help to increase or bring about decline in their productivity and performances.
Stress has generated a great deal of interest in recent years. It has been a great concern to employees who experience it and to researchers.
To most people, stress is bad must be avoided, but this position is not always true. According to Yates (1979), stress in proper amounts is a necessary ingredient in any person whose life is going to manifest vitality. Stress is to be managed and not simply avoided. Thus, this study is designed to look into the effect of stress on workers performance in any organization with a case study of College of Education, Ekiadolor-Benin. Ivancevish Matterson 1980 pointed out that to say stress produced performance degradation is rather a simplistic over stated position thus there must be on optimum level of stress that is tolerated to bring about performance. This standpoint makes stress a complex concept that does not lead itself to a simple definition. Mc Garth (1976) defined stress in terms of conditions necessary for it as follows;
It is a potential for stress when environmental situation is perceived as presenting a demand that threatens to exceed the persons’ capabilities where he expects to substantial deferential in towards and costs from meeting the demand versus not meeting it.
Signs of stress are wide spread among the teaching staff i.e. lectures which are the academic staffs, the senior non teaching staffs i.e. principal officers and the junior non teaching staffs today in the college. And so are the adverse effects of stress on their well being health and even the safety of their co-workers.
Some negative effects of stress are increased absenteeism, heart disease, lateness to work and ill-health. The issue at hand is to find out the effects of stress on perform these effects could either be positive or negative.
Work stress can have both positive and negative consequences on the individual, thus having stress to work peak efficiency can create satisfaction a sense of well being and accomplishment and other reward for success. But on the other hand, excessive stress at work can result loss of efficiency, failure to perform well and negative effects on mental and physical health.
Stress is caused by some factors (stressors), which exist both within and without the organization. These stressors can be identified as intra-individual, inter-individual organizational and extra organizational stressors.
In this regards, the present study seeks at finding causes, symptoms and effects and the relationship that exist between job stress and employees performance and finally to recommend stress coping strategies to management by using the employees of college of education Ekiadolor as a case study.