Eduquity Career Technologies, the country's pioneering Human Resource Assessment solutions company, brings you another issue of `Equations', our fortnightly newsletter. Equations will bring you regular updates on the latest developments on HR selection and development initiatives as also those in the field of assessments, besides keeping you informed of our findings in these areas, scientific research being an ongoing process at Eduquity.

This issue highlights the causes of stress in executives and the damaging effects it has on their performance on the job. Also featured are the last set of findings in the ITES sector.We hope you enjoy this issue of Equations

We hope you enjoy this issue of Equations

Frequent travel. Late hours. Overwork. Lunches and dinners with clients - spent either soothing irate clients or convincing prospective ones. Attempting to strike a balance between family and work (often unsuccessfully)..

The major outcome of the growing rate of social and technological changes is an increase in the level of psychological stress. And it is pretty apparent that increasing stress could shape our life experiences in a negative manner and affect our physical and mental health.

The reasons for stress at the work place are many indeed. The outcome? Burnout. Premature retirement before the employee truly actualizes his / her potential. Physical illness - which proves to be at times chronic or fatal.

The loss can be immense for both the organization - in terms of loss of efficient manpower and for the individual - in terms of the loss of a promising career and more importantly, losing out on the quality of life despite financial and material abundance.

What are these stressors that are insidiously sapping most if not all executives cambering up the ladder of success? Identifying these stress factors would lead to increased awareness and then perhaps an attempt could be made to lower their effects.

Dr Arathi Venkatesh, H R Consultant, Eduquity Career Technologies, has, as part of her doctoral thesis on `Executive stress and physical illness', identified some of these stress factors that plague today's executives and has established a definitive cause-effect relationship between these stressors and physical illness. Stress produces many symptoms, both short term and long term. Short term symptoms include physical symptoms such as headaches, blood pressure changes and ulcers; emotional symptoms such as anger, callousness, impatience; behavioural symptoms including under or over eating and withdrawal to name just a few. The long term symptoms relate to social, occupational and other health aspects.

So what are these stress factors?

• One of the organizational sources of stress includes organizational climate which undoubtedly has a major influence on motivation, production and job satisfaction.
• Role conflict is another source of stress. It refers to the degree to which expectations of a role are incompatible or incongruent with the reality of a role. In fact, a significant relationship has been found between role conflict and coronary heart disease. Role conflict refers to the extent to which executives are unclear about their responsibilities leading to job dissatisfaction, psychological strain and tension, including negative emotional response.
• Work overload (quantitative - too much to do; and qualitative -- too difficult) leads to increased alcohol consumption and lower motivation levels, anxiety, depression and also coronary heart disease.
• Interpersonal problems with co-workers is also another stressor. When an individual does not get along with his colleagues, it could lead to lowered self-esteem and poor motivation.
• Individual stressors like developing a personality pattern called the Type A Behavior Pattern, which is characterized by aggressiveness, ambitiousness, restlessness, and a strong sense of time urgency; is associated with increased risk for coronary heart disease.

The results highlight the presence of workaholic behavior pattern and individuals should take care to overcome factors like little time for relaxation, poor sleep pattern, low on introspection, being dominating, tense and demanding which leads to developing Type A behavior pattern

Keeping these stressors in mind, organizations should give more attention to stress relieving activities and emphasize the physiological and psychological benefits of activities like exercising and giving up escapist habits like smoking and alcohol consumption. Organizations should also encourage their employees to cultivate better interpersonal relationships so as to create a congenial work atmosphere within the organization.

With the findings listed below, we conclude this section featuring our findings on the ITES sector. The earlier findings included: Language