ABSTRACT

Job stress is now playing an important role in deciding employees’ performance in many companies, especially the agricultural sectors. With swelling obligations in the workplace, it is very difficult for the employees to maintain a fair level of work stress. Circumstances effect on workers psychologically and physiologically. The hectic life productivity and excelling in some agricultural industries put tremendous pressure on the employees’ life which leads to work stress which is a problem that poses a big risk to workers well-being. Job stress is one of the critical issues discussed in the organizational studies which necessitated a study focused on the mediating effect of job stress and employees’ performance in Bota palm estate in the Cameroon Development Corporation in the Fako-Division of Cameroon. A sample of workers of the Bota Palms estate was involved in the study. Stratified sampling method was used, and primary data were collected through questionnaires of which 209 questionnaires was distributed to the employees in the Bota palms estate and 110 returned filled. Cronbach’s alpha score confirmed the reliability of the measure used. The validity and reliability of the research instrument was highly regarded useful and relevant for data collection. The data is analyzed for descriptive statistics. The specific objectives of the study are to investigate the effects of physical, mental, behavioral and emotional stress have on employees’ performance in Cameroon Development Corporation. As a result, the findings from the study justifies the researcher’s recommendations to the Cameroon Development Corporation and other organizations that regular workshops and conferences should be held on how to manage stress among employees and administrators, leaves should be handled when due in order to improve employee’s performance. And also, similar study could be carried out focusing on stress management schemes to help employees manage their stress in order to improve employees’ productivity or performance.

Key words: Job Stress, Employees’ Performance and Cameroon Development Corporation.

CHAPTER ONE GENERAL

INTRODUCTION

1.1  Introduction

This chapter comprises of; background of the study, statement of the problem, research questions, research objectives, the hypothesis of the study, scope of the study, significance of the study, and operational definition of terms.

1.2  Background of the study

Today, although contemporary world has brought benefits of the advanced technologies, modern life style and a lot of facilities, but this has also increased competition. There is growing concern for the policy makers, leaders and subordinate to get competitive advantage in the organizations. This has raised pressure on the employees to work hard and get more outputs in order to achieve competitive advantage. This race for competitive advantage among the different organizations on one side has introduced improvements in the facilities and modern development. But on the other side it has raised an environment of job stress.

The agricultural sectors in Cameroon play an important role, considering that more than 40%of its workforce depends on agriculture. Based on data from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), around 1.3 million people work in agriculture throughout the world. From these data, 60% of them work in developing countries (Forastieri, 2001). The agricultural sector is one of the main priorities of development in Cameroon for instance the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), who is the second employer after the state. The passion of farming, despite the all the hassles, requires the sector to do something right in managing job stress. Stress that is not recognized and not managed properly can lead to an environment of job stress. When stress levels are high, farmers tend to make poor agriculture decisions, resulting to poor employee performance in CDC.

In today’s world, stress has become a worldwide phenomenon, which occurs in various forms in every workplace. In today’s work life, employees are generally working for longer hours, as the rising levels of responsibilities require them to exert themselves even more strenuously to meet rising expectations about work performance. According to Robbins and Sanghi (2006) “A dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an opportunity, constraints, or demand related to what he or she desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important.” Stress is an increasing problem in agriculture industries and often causes adverse effects on employee performance. According to Swanepoel et al. (1998) work related stress has been an issue that has received increasing attention, in the area of agro allied industry over the last decades. These authors were of the opinion that the world, especially the world of work and business, has become increasingly subjected to fast changing forces like increased competition, the pressure of quality, innovation and an increase in the pace of agricultural business. The demands on employees grew equally dramatically and this created stress within employees. Apart from stress that arose from the work situation, other sources of stress could relate to personal factors such as relationships with others and use of free time, more especially in the agricultural sector.

Job Stress has harmful psychological and physical reactions that occur in an individual as a result of his or her inability to cope with the demands being made on him or her (Moorhead et al. 1998). That is, tension from extra-ordinary demands on an individual. It is noted that, stress is not necessarily bad; it is an opportunity when it offers potential gain. But whatever its nature, it usually begins when individuals are placed in a work environment that is incompatible with their work style and or temperament. It becomes aggravated when individuals find out that they have or can exercise little control over it. “Michac (1997) specified causes of stress as follows: poor time management, unclear job descriptions, feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, inability to get things done, lack of communication, bad personal relationships, quality and complexity of tasks. In the same breadth, Dean (2002) viewed stress-related illnesses as the leading cause for low productivity levels in the workplace.

An employee in agricultural sector spends almost one third of his life on work, and sometimes he has to face a lot of stress during his/her job. The nature of agricultural jobs has not witness enormous changes over the past years. Stress in a workplace has touched almost all professions, starting from executive levels to co-workers who are directly engaged in the production. The result of the job stress ultimately affects the physical as well as mental health. Stress has been defined in different ways over the years. It is a condition in which any human is confronted with an opportunity or demand related to what they desire and for which

the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important. There are number of studies and surveys have been conducted by the researchers throughout the world for suggesting improved techniques to manage stress. Some of the reasons of work stress may be: Interpersonal causes, role demand, task demand, structure of the organization, style of leadership, organizational work culture. Interpersonal causes are due to interpersonal relationship at work place, when employees found unsupportive environment or any personal remark from others at workplace.

According to ILO (1986) “It is recognized world-wide as a major challenge to individual mental and physical health, and organizational health.” Although stress includes both good and bad aspects but it is not necessarily bad. Robbins and Sanghi (2006) also contributed “stress is typically discussed in a negative context; it also has a positive value. It is an opportunity when offers a potential gain.”

According to Michac (1997) “One of the affected outcomes of stress is on job performance. “So it needs to be studied. Stress is a condition of strain that has a direct Bearing on emotions, thought process and physical conditions of a person.

In addition, job stress can also be caused a by lack of resources, work schedules which can include working at late hours, overtime, and organizational climate are also contributors to job stress on employees. Job stress often shows high dissatisfaction among the employees, poor work performance and less effective interpersonal relations at work. In Cameroon, several national surveys have indicated that about 52% of the workforce in organizations suffers from stress related problems. This means that stress can be a killer of many organizations in Cameroon of which Cameroon Development Corporation is no exception.

Performance may be evaluated in terms of the output of an employee in a specific period of time. Much of the success of any organization relies upon the performance of its workforce; employee performance is an important consideration for business. Work today is “result oriented” rather than “people oriented”. It is only the performance that matters. Performance is a multidimensional construct which construct which forms organizational goal directed behaviours and actions (Mccloy, Campbell, and Cudeck, 1994).

1.3  Statement of the problem

Cameroon is an agrarian economy in the CEMAC region and a hub for food . It is here that agriculture becomes an imperative part of the Cameroonian economy. Agriculture of any country provides food to the people contributing to that economy (Jermsittiparsert, Sriyakul, & Rodoonsong, 2013). It is the role of the agro allied companies to provide policies and accompanying frameworks for increasing workers’ performance. The agro allied companies must take steps that undermine job stress of the workers so as to enhance their productivity.

Employees of these agro allied companies such as CDC play an important role expanding the production of its output. However, stress is a prevalent problem not only in CDC but also in other agro- allied companies in Cameroon. The resultant effects are numerous, ranging from low productivity to increased absenteeism, high rates of job turnover, depression, mental instability, as well as problems with the general wellbeing of an employee (Grobler, Warnich and Carrell, 2014).

These issue of job stress has become a regular occurrence in the Cameroon Development Corporation that affect all categories workers in all the estates. It has been suggested by numerous studies that job stress within agriculture sectors in Cameroon especially in CDC will continuously be on the rise due to factors such as employees’ desire for career advancement, lack of appropriate innovative technology and low wages. More importantly, CDC workers undergo stress due to considerably heavy workload, limited resources and inadequate organizational support; dealing with top management and co-workers; poor career progression, poor staffing as the Anglophone violent conflict (The Planter, 2018, CDC).

The Anglophone crisis has seriously affected CDC workers’ productivity. They  did not go to work for a long period of time caused a drop in productivity which affected the industry greatly. As a consequent, there has been continuous change in management strategies and administration which results to high demand on the employee to increase perform has increase. This has resulted to continue strike by workers in CDC over payment of past salaries. It has culminated to a lot of pressure on the employees, who are expected to deliver their service at large without the corresponding increase resources and training. Yet, those who fail to deliver are threatened with warning letters and other forms of punishment. With jobs very difficult to come by these days in Cameroon, many employees are crumbling under

this pressure, cases of job stress are therefore on the ascendancy. It is in this view that this study is being conducted to identify the effect of stress has on the performance of employees of Cameroon Development Corporation.

1.4  Research Questions

With the afore mentioned problems, the following research questions were formulated to guide the study.

1.4.1 Main Research Question

The main research question of the study is; to what extend does Job Stress affects employee’s performance?

1.4.2 Specific Research Questions

1. How does physical stress affect the performance of CDC workers?
2. Does mental stress influence workers performance in CDC?
3. How behavioural stress does relate to workers performance in CDC?
4. Does emotional stress affect worker performance in CDC?

1.5  Research Objectives

The main objective of this research will be to study the effects of job stress on employee’s performance. However, the research has the following specific objective which is to:

1. Examine the effect of physical stress on workers productivity in
2. Analyze the effect of mental stress on workers performance in
3. Determine the relationship between behavioral stress and workers performance CDC.
4. Examine the effect of emotional stress on workers performance in CDC.

1.6  Research Hypothesis

1. Physical stress does not positively affect worker performance in
2. Mental stress does not positively influence employee productivity in
3. Behavioural stress does not positively relate to workers performance in CDC.
4. Emotional stress does not influence workers performance in CDC.