Vol 25, No 3; Article by Arti Devi and Jyoti Sharma, September 2013
Segmenting of employees based on their experience of role stressors may provide a useful framework for designing an effective role stress management programme. Yet, the available framework for comprehending the role stressor based segments of employees is inadequate in the Indian context. Empirical data from a random sample of 501 frontline employees of commercial banks in Jammu and Kashmir State (India) have been used to segment the employees on the basis of role stressors experienced by them at the workplace. Cluster analytical approach has been applied to categorise the employees using SPSS 14.0. The results revealed three distinct segments namely, "overloaded employees", "unclear employees", and "underutilised employees", based on their experience of role stressors. The overloaded employees cluster represents those respondents who experience workload in excess of their expectations. The unclear employees cluster relates to the respondents who lack adequate knowledge for meeting the role responsibilities and are experiencing ambiguous situations at work. The underutilised employees cluster corresponds to those respondents who do not see many growth opportunities for themselves and feel short of skills and knowledge. The results suggest that having the same role stress management programme for all employees could be sub-optimal. Hence the effectiveness of the role stress management programme is likely to increase, if they are designed to address cluster specific needs. The study underlines the heightened relevance of a customised approach to role stress management.
