czwartek, 2 kwietnia 2015

Recruitment Process in Startups

In the process of building and establishing a start up, it is essential that the right kind of resources are hired so that the complete potential of the company may be brought to use and the growth of the company may be achieved without hurdles or glitches. One of the first and most important resource that requires extensive research and planning, is the human resource. Specially for a start up, it is important that the human resource hired is of the highest quality and contributes to the upward graph of the business, along with establishing a name in the respective market or industry. A start up is posed with a lot of dangers and risks, which it needs to be able to avoid. In the process of hiring staff for a new company, the founders must take the help of experts in the business so that the chances of going wrong are cut down to the minimum. Experts may be in the form of consultants who specialize in hiring staff for companies. The experts are even more important if the start up is to be established in a big city such as Mumbai. This is the reason why a large number of start ups trust recruitment consultants in Mumbai for their recruitment needs.


Mumbai is a vast city with people commuting long distances for work in conditions which may be close to inhuman. In such a situation, finding the right candidates for a job may not be everyone's cup of tea, this is where recruitment firms in Mumbai come in the picture. These firms ensure that the candidates chosen for a particular start up have experience and expertise that matches the requirement of the hiring firm. Apart from the skills, the recruiters also keep a tab on how the candidates have previously performed and how loyal or disloyal they have been in previous jobs profiles, the consultants make necessary checks through references where ever possible, so that a proper insight about the candidate is achieved. A recruitment consultant also ensures that the placement of the candidate is done in accordance with the location and commute systems to and from the office locations, which ensures that in a city like Mumbai which runs on the Mumbai local trains, the candidate does not have to face travel issues, which in turn may lead to problems for the start up.
The process of filling up vacancies is a great job even for those companies that already have a strong footing the industry. This means that a start up needs to be doubly careful while hiring a candidate, if this task is taken lightly, the chances are high that the precious resources, money and time of a start up may get wasted behind the wrong people. Avoiding such an issue must be the first priority of a start up owner, in order to be able to see real results in a short span of time.

The Returnship Breaking Back into Business

One of the great dilemmas for equality in Britain has been how people – usually women – can return to the workplace after a career break. Some women are put off from having children by the assumption that taking a long break will effectively end their career. Others have children but return to work as soon as they can to take advantage of the law providing them with a suitable alternative job within a year, so they miss out on seeing their children growing up.


The difficulty has always been to create a way that benefits both ‘returners' and the companies that employ them. In America, an idea has been tested that may provide a solution. Called the ‘returnship' it works on the basis that people wanting to return to their careers after long breaks need to break back into the job market just as new graduates and young people have to break into it in the first place.
Let's imagine Lucy, a legal adviser at a large firm, takes a ten year career break to have children and stays at home to raise them while they are very young. She then wants to go back to her career. She goes to either her old company or a new one, and the company agrees to take her on for initially a six month ‘returnship'. Her position would probably be at a roughly similar level to the one she left, but for the first few months she is on a lower salary.
Lucy wins because she has found a way back into a highly competitive field after a long gap, but in a less pressurised way. She can now use this time to refresh her skills, learn the recent changes to the law and the job, and be in a good position to get a higher paid job at the end (either at that law firm or elsewhere). The firm wins because it gets a highly skilled professional person on a lower salary than normal who just needs some refreshing and updating.
The returnship was pioneered by Goldman Sachs back in 2008. The company observed that many professional women had difficulties returning to the workforce after taking time off to raise their children. The returnship program allowed them to test the waters, providing an environment to refresh and update their existing skills.
Most returnships last three to six months and are remunerated, though at a level similar to internships. They allow workers to tackle real projects, to gain the skills and confidence to get back into the workplace on a more permanent basis.
Critics of the returnship format suggest that such programmes are simply a way for companies to retain workers at low cost and don't offer any real value to participants. There is also the suggestion that returnships distract participants because they allow them to take their focus off looking for a job while they go through the programme.
Despite these criticisms, the returnship format is becoming more popular. They are well suited to workers with a clear idea of what they want to achieve, and who see the programme as a step towards achieving their goals.
Returnships would not work in all careers, but the idea could have a role to play both in giving people who have been out of the workplace for several years more options and flexibility in their working lives, and in giving companies a cost-effective option to bring good talent into their workplaces.
Russell HR Consulting provides expert knowledge in HR solutions, employment law training and HR tools and resources to businesses across the UK.

Typical services Human Resource in IT and Non IT

Human Resource services are group of individuals which involves in the services related to an employee. The duties done by this department includes personnel sourcing and hiring, payroll, firing, benefits, skills development and tracking, applicant tracking and keeping up to date data base with state and federal tax laws. They are the main source of the employee well being in an organization. They may be in a small number but hold many crucial roles and responsibilities. These personnel will give a proper training of current employees and groom them up with the business needs. Generally, the human resource services in IT and Non IT is termed into four categories like PEOs, ASPs, BPOs and e-services.

Four categories of Human Resource services

A Professional Employer Organization (PEO) is an outsourced human resources department which deals with Employment administration, Employee benefits, Government compliance management, Workers compensation, Recruiting and hiring, Payroll and payroll tax administration, Policies and best practices, Training and development or Performance management. Currently, they are playing a major role in the growth of Human Resource Outsourcing by retaining superior employee for many businesses. While in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), the Human Resourcing service is completely supported by the new technologies including HR data warehousing and self access. Application service providers (ASPs) host software will manage responsibilities like benefits, payroll and even more. Lastly, the E-services are well known HR services which are web-based and often referred with BPOs and ASPs.

The HR roles and responsibilities

The typical services provided by the Human Resource services in IT and Non IT sector include Payroll administration. This service has duties like producing checks, dealing with sick time, handling taxes and vacation time. They should ensure employee benefits like health, 401(k) plans, medical and life insurance and cafeteria plans. Coming to HR management, the personnel have to deal with hiring, recruiting and firing. Moreover, this process also includes background interviews, wage reviews and exit interviews. The Risk management service of HR system includes dispute resolution, workers compensation, office policies, safety inspection and handbooks.
In large scale organizations, the human resource services have job titles as a Training Manager, Safety Coordinator and an Organization Development Consultant. The perfect human resource department will provide people friendly guidelines and support, innovative policies and procedures. In addition to this, the HR department will function well in order to maintain the company vision, mission, values, factors and the company metrics.


Employee Retention

 INTRODUCTION
 Employee retention refers to policies and practices companies use to prevent valuable employees from leaving their jobs. How to retain valuable employees is one of the biggest problem that plague companies in the competitive marketplace. Not too long ago, companies accepted the "revolving door policy" as part of doing business and were quick to fill a vacant job with another eager candidate. Nowadays, businesses often find that they spend considerable time, effort, and money to train an employee only to have them develop into a valuable commodity and leave the company for greener pastures. In order to create a successful company, employers should consider as many options as possible when it comes to retaining employees, while at the same time securing their trust and loyalty so they have less of a desire to leave in the future.
 
MEANING
Employee retention involves taking measures to encourage employees to remain in the organization for the maximum period of time. Corporate is facing a lo of problem in employee retention these days. Hiring knowledgeable people for the job is essential for an employer. But retention is even more important than hiring. There is no dearth of opportunities for talented person. There are many organizations which are looking for such employees. If a person is not satisfied by the job he's doing, he may switch over to some other more suitable job. In today's environment it becomes very important for organizations to retain their employees.
 DEFINITION
According to Get Les Mckeown's employee retention is define as " effective employee retention is a systematic effort by employers to create and foster an environment that encourages current employees to remain employed by having policies and practices in place that address their divers needs. Also of concern are the costs of employee turnover (including hiring costs. productivity loss). Replacement costs usually are 2.5 times the salary of the individual. The costs associated with turnover may include lost customers, business and damaged morale. In addition there are the hard costs of time spent in screening, verifying credentials, references, interviewing, hiring, and training the new employee just to get back to where you started."

BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEE RETENTION.
Every company should understand that people are their best commodity. Without qualified people who are good at what they do, any company would be in serious trouble. In the long un, the retention of existing employees saves companies money. As Beverly Kaye and Sharon  Jordan- Evan stated in Training and Development: " Studies have found that the cost of replacing lost talent is 70 o 200 percent of that employee's annual salary. There are advertising and recruiting expenses, orientation and training of the new employee, decreased productivity until the new employee is up to speed, and loss of customers who were loyal to the departing employee. Finding, recruiting, and training the best employees represents a major investment. Once a company has captured talented people, the return-on-investment requires closing the back door to prevent them from walking out."
            When an employee leaves a company for a direct competitor, there is always a chance that they will take important business strategies and secrets with them to be explained by the competition. This is yet another reason why the retention of employees is so crucial to some businesses. While this practice seems a bit unscrupulous, it skills happens quite frequently. As Bill Leonard stated in HR Magazine: " Because employers know that the best-qualified applicants
will come directly from competitors, recruiting and hiring employees away from mother of inventive and sometimes controversial business practices. Recruiting and hiring from your competitors is probably as  old as business itself. But what is new—and a hot topic among employers – is how to attract and retain qualified candidates in a highly competitive labor market while also preventing their own intellectual capital from winding up in the hands of competitors.
One way for a company to prevent employees from giving valuable information to competitors is to make it a policy to enforce strict noncompete and confidentiality agreements amongst its employees. The existence of such agreements could in fact deter a competitor from hiring a valuable employ because they might not want to risk possible legal entanglements with the other company. Of course, all this could possibly lead to animosity with the employee who could feel that his or her options are being limited. Many employees don't always remember signing such a document, so a copy of it should always be kept on file for the employee to refer to. This area could prove to be a highly sensitive one between employer and employee, so extreme caution is suggested in all instances.
 

IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE RETENTION

Why is retention so important? Is it just to reduce the turnover costs? It's not only the cost incurred by a company that emphasizes the need of retaining employees but also the need to retain talented employees from getting poached.
The process of employee retention  will benefit an organization in the following ways
1. The Cost of Turnover: The cost of employee turnover adds hundreds of thousands of money to a company's expenses. While it is difficult to fully calculate the cost of turnover (including hiring costs, training costs and productivity loss), industry experts often quote 25% of the average employee salary as a conservative estimate.
  1. Loss of Company Knowledge: When an employee leaves, he takes with him valuable knowledge about the company, customers, current projects and past history (sometimes to competitors). Often much time and money has been spent on the employee in expectation of a future return. When the employee leaves, the investment is not realized.
  1. Interruption of Customer Service: Customers and clients do business with a company in part because of the people. Relationships are developed that encourage continued sponsorship of the business. When an employee leaves, the relationships that employee built for the company are severed, which could lead to potential customer loss.
  2. Turnover leads to more turnovers: When an employee terminates, the effect is felt throughout the organization. Co-workers are often required to pick up the slack. The unspoken negativity often intensifies for the remaining staff.
  3. Goodwill of the company: The goodwill of a company is maintained when the attrition rates are low. Higher retention rates motivate potential employees to join the organization.
  4. Regaining efficiency: If an employee resigns, then good amount of time is lost in hiring a new employee and then training him/her and this goes to the loss of the company directly which many a times goes unnoticed. And even after this you cannot assure us of the same efficiency from the new employee
EMPLOYEE RETENTION TOOLS
            Hiring individuals who re truly fit to succeed in the position for hire will dramatically increase the chances of that employee being satisfied with his or her work and remaining with the company for extended period of time. By far, we have found this to be the biggest predictor of future employee retention.
communication: Communication has become so heavily stressed in the workplace that it almost seems cliché. However communication couldn't be more important in the effort to retain employees. Be sure that team members know their rules, job description, and responsibilities within the organization. Communicate any new company policies or initiatives to all employees to be sure that everyone is on the same page. Nobody wants to feel that they are being left out of the loop.
Include employees in decision making: It is incredibly important to include team members in the   decision making process, especially when decision will effect an individual's department or work  team. This can help  to create of employee involvement and will generate new ideas and perspectives that top management might never have thought of.
 Allow team members to share their knowledge with others:The highest percentage of information retention occurs when on shares that information with others. Having team members share when they have learned at a recent conference or training workshop will not only increase the amount is information they will retain, but also lets a team member know that he is a valuable member of the organization. Facilitating knowledge sharing through an employee mentoring program can be equally beneficial for the team member being mentored as well as mentor.
Shorten the feedback loop:Do not wait for an annual performance evaluation to come due to  give feedback on how an employee is performing. Most team members enjoy frequent feedback about hoe they performing. Shortening  the feedback loop will help to keep performance level high and will reinforce positive behavior.  Feedback does not necessarily need to be
scheduled or highly structured;  simply stopping  by a team member's desk and letting them know they are doing a good job a current project can do wonders for morale and help to increase retention.
Balance work and personal life:Family is incredibly important to team members. when work begins to put a significant strain on one's family no amount of money will keep an employee around. stress the importance of balancing work and one's personal life. Small gestures such as allowing a team member to take an extended lunch once a week to watch his son's baseball game will likely be repaid with loyalty and extended employment with an organization.
Provide opportunities for growth and development:Offer opportunities for team members to acquire new skills and knowledge useful to the organization. If an employee appears to be bored or burned out in a current position offer to train this individual in another facet of the organization where he or she would be a good fit. Nobody wants to feel stuck in their position will no possibility for advancement or new opportunities.
Recognize team members for their hard work and let them know they are appreciated:This  can  be  one  of the single greatest factors  affecting employee retention. Everybody, in the all levels of an  organization, wants to know that their efforts are appreciated and recognized. This can be as simple or as extravagant as a supervisor may desire. Often time a short e-mail or quickly stopping by a team member's desk and saying "thanks" can do wonder for morale. Other options might include a mention in the company newsletter for outstanding performance or gift certificates to a restaurant o movie theatre – the possibilities are endless.
Clearly define what is expected of team members:Nothing can be more frustrating or discouraging for an employee than the lack of a clear understanding of what is expected of him on the job. In a performance driven workplace a lack of clarity regarding job duties and expectations can cause fear and anxiety among employees who are unclear of what is expected of them. Even worse outright
anger can occur when a team member receives a negative performance evaluation based on expectations and job duties that he or she was unaware of or unclear about.
 The quality of supervision and mentorship:It has been said so often that it is almost cliché, but  people leave, not their jobs. Supervisors play the largest role in a team member's development  and ultimate success within an organization. All employees want to have supervisors who are respectful, courteous, and friendly – that is a given. But more importantly team member want supervisors who se clear performance expectations, deliver timely feedback on performance, live up to their word and promises, and provide an environment where the  employee can grow and succeed. Failure by supervisors and management to provide this can cause an employee to start looking for greener pastures.
 Fair and equitable treatment of all employees:One of the surest ways to create animosity and resentment  in an organization is to allow favoritism and preferential treatment of individual team members. The so-called "good ole' boys club" cancreate a noxious organization culture and foster resentment among team members. This culture will only get worse and can create a devastating exodus of valued team members.
 Best employee reward programs:If these rewards are in terms of money, by dividing it into two parts and giving the first half parts with the initial month's salary and the remaining after six months helps in retaining the   employee for six months.
 Career development program:Conditional assistance for certain courses should be provided within the company in which the company will bear the expenses only if he/she scores a certain aggregate of marks.
 Performance based bonus:To get more work out of the employees, remuneration in                  the form of bonus helps to retain individuals who are highly productive. It doesn't add extra – pressure on the company's budget. It can be arranged by cutting a part of the salary hikes.
 Employee referral plan:Introducing employee referral plans and giving referral bonus after six to nine months of continuous working of the new employee as well as existing employee reduces the hiring cost of new employee as well as helps retention of the existing ones for a longer period of time.
Loyalty bonus:After successful completion of a specified period of time in an organization rewarding employees with money or position gives recognition and satisfaction to them. It also gives encouragement to the fellow employees.
Giving voice to the knowledge banks:The important intellectual assets of the company is the workforce. The company should retain it through involving I in some of the important decisions
 Employee recreation:Involvement of top management along with the lower and middle level management in some recreational activities makes the employees feel that they are very close to the management and are treated equality.
Gifts on some occasions:Giving some gifts on festivals and special occasions to the employees makes them feel good and realize that the management is concerned about them.
 Accountability:Creation of an environment that demands accountability and transparency helps employees to feel that they are as superiors. This helps in emotional bonding of the employees.
Surveys:Conducting regular surveys, feedbacks from superiors as well as other issues like morale, development plans, etc. This make them feel important and understand that the company really cares for them
 Fun and laughter at workplace:Fun and laugher in a workplace lend a competitive advantage to an organization through its human recourses. The presence of humor in a workplace enables the employees to work with interest and enthusiasm that reduce the work pressure and attrition levels. It instills a sense of joy among the employees that can go a long way in creating a bond between the employees and the employer and thereby deceasing the rate of employee attrition. in a  nutshell, creating a fun and laughter – filled wok environment in an organization will pave the way for its success in the marketplace. such a company is sure to emerge as an ‘employer of choice'.
 For every company, workforce is an intellectual capital which is the source of its competitive advantage and helps achieve the bottom line. Hence, retaining a well trained, skilled and contented workforce can lead a company to dizzy heights while the lack of it can hamper its growth badly. So, every resignation saved is every dollar earned.
CONCLUSION
 No doubt, soaring retention levels are proving to be a serious problem for organizations. Concerted efforts to keep retention on tight leash will definitely help. How retention level will lead to fewer operational problems, greater productivity and soaring morale and huge cost saving to the organization. In this context, attrition management has become the strategic focus and compelling necessity of businesses today. Thus, ignoring the problem of mounting attrition level can have devastating consequences for the business.  Organization can afford to ignore the problem at own peril.
            This work enables me to gain a practical explore along with my theoretical knowledge. I am sure that it will help me to pursuer my future studies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  • Research methodology II  Edition, Wishwa Prakasan Publishers, New Delhi     
                 C.R. Kothari
                 Saravanavel
  • Marketing Management
                  Phillip Kotler
  • www.google.com
  • www.yahoo.com
  • www.rediff.com
·        www.retention.naukrihub.com
·        www. humanresources.about.com
·        www.highretention.com
·        www.employeeretentionstrategies.com
  • www.retentionconnection.com
 

Benefit of Using an Employee Onboarding Software

Employee onboarding is one of the most critical processes in efficient management of human resources. An effective onboarding process ensures that the new employees of an organization start contributing to its profitability as early as possible. The nature of onboarding practice tends to vary across organizations. However, the advent of advanced technology has completely changed the way onboarding of new employees takes place now in different companies. More and more organizations now look for top class onboarding software because they understand the value of making a decent initial impression on their employees. This is why an employee onboarding solution like eJoin can make life easier for any business organization that recruits new employees on a regular basis.
  • Paperless Onboarding Process: Onboarding software users can go green because they will no longer need to store and print thousands of pages to create and maintain their onboarding information. In addition to waste reduction, an efficient onboarding solution also saves cost incurred on paper and toner, printing, printer maintenance and document storage and transportation. eJoin Employee Onboarding Software can be an excellent alternative because it offers benefits like electronic hiring forms, electronic signatures, easy inventory management and reporting, and easy system access management.
  • Employee Productivity: All employees require time to understand an organization and its operational procedures. According to recent studies, different companies in the US and UK end up spending $37 billion per year on new employees who are not able to understand their role in the organization. eJoin is designed to make employees productive even before their start date by minimizing the learning curve and allowing them to focus on job tasks from day one. New employees can share their joining experience, thanks to the advanced eJoin survey manager.
  • Human Error Management: Organizations that recruit new employees on a regular basis face a great risk human error during the onboarding process. The consequences of improper onboarding can even lead to an unexpectedly high employee turnover ratio. Efficient onboarding solutions like eJoin eliminates inadequacies of the onboarding process by minimizing human involvement. With eJoin, it becomes much easier to track and allocate different onboarding roles to people across the organization.
  • Cost Reduction: An organization can save thousands of dollars by replacing their traditional onboarding practice by a software solution. eJoin users can save anything between $300 and $1,200 for each new hire. This software can be integrated effortlessly with all types of existing HR Systems. Moreover, this solution, is completely compliance driven.
  • Scalability: Advanced onboarding solutions like eJoin also makes it possible for organizations to measure their return on investment. The eJoin ROI calculator tool makes it a breeze to calculate savings by entering simple company details and hiring expenses.
  • Improvement in Metrics: Manual onboarding practice is extremely time consuming. Human resource teams lose valuable time on different administrative procedures and paperwork. The overall performance metrics for the team can improve by leaps and bounds with an efficient onboarding software.
  • Welcoming New Employees: A smooth onboarding process makes new employees comfortable in their new workplace and keeps them motivated to perform right from the day one. Often times, it is seen that an organization is not ready with the employee desk, computer, and work plan even a week after the joining of the employee. This demotivates the new employees and makes them feel unwelcome in the new work environment. eJoin is exceptional because it welcomes employees from their very first day and makes managers accountable for their responsibilities.
  • eJoin provides a complete solution to organizations because in addition to onboarding, it can also be used for off-boarding and employee movements taking place within an organization. Therefore, it is an excellent software for organizations looking to track employee movement and ensure a high degree of compliance.
Though some very small and static organizations may still feel that they can manage their onboarding process manually, there is no denying the fact that any business can benefit by automating their onboarding process using software solutions like eJoin Employee Onboarding Software.

Additionally we would like to provide you with the list of interesting companies you might wish to work for:

the UK best companies - ranking

Have you ever wondered if there are the best companies in the UK to work for? Yes there are, and here you can find the list of them. We have prepared a ranking list of 30 best of them.  Let's have a look and apply online for the vacancies you are interested in:


Stress in Public & Private Sector


Introduction
Flatter organizations, virtual teams and changing employee values mean that today's managers face a rapidly changing environment to work in. There is an enormous pressure on organizations to work in non-traditional environments. Stress has become a common phenomenon of our daily common life. The Encyclopedia of stress Flick (2000) defines stress as "real or interpreted threat to physiological or psychological integrity of an individual that results in physiological and/or behavioral response." In other words, stress is a response of the body to the challenging events or any other events that places a demand on an individual. Globalization is at the center of this. It is one of the big reasons for the stress related to work. Working global means that managers and employees have to work in quite an uncertain environment; have a global mindset and be able with the unexpected. Globalization has also presented the managers and employees of organizations with many challenges. Some of the key ones include the ability to work better in limited resources, accepting the mobility, and the ability to cope up with the stress levels. Apart from these the management styles have to be completely dynamic and flexible to changes. Moreover the concept of globalization has affected both the public and private sectors. Therefore, organizations treat this phenomenon very seriously as it directly affects their performance and ultimately their existence. Stress develops when there is a mix of demands and pressures on the person on one hand and knowledge and abilities on the other. Researchers on medical science have identified three components that cause stress. These are job and organization, social sector and intra-psychic sector. Businesses today are always on the change and therefore organizations are constantly on the way out looking for new ways of doing business. The literature of management also shows that companies that have been adaptive to changing cultures have been more successful (Kotler, 1992). A new age of technology, the advent of digital age has bought about geographical boundaries seemingly closer and which has become some of the main reasons for the increase in the work related stress. Apparently with lives moving as fast as a click of the mouse, work stress is increasing. Employees cannot afford to relax in such a business environment. Therefore, it is safe to state that amidst the complexity of life, stress is inevitable. In this paper, we shall assess the stress from the work perspective and also look at the difference in the stress levels in both public and private sectors. There is a focused market in which we look in and that is the Indian market.

Work Stress
According to researchers like Ivancivich (2001) and Hebard (1996), amongst all other required skills like overseas experience, desire to go overseas, knowledge of specific areas, international managers need to be well averse with the idea of stress management. Work related stress has become the top agenda for many government agencies nowadays. This is primarily due to the financial and psychological implications it puts on the country. Work related stress can be defined as any level of mental or physical strain that is gained due to pressures in the profession. Work stress is given much impetus since it directly affects the government in the public sectors and the business in the private sectors. A number of factors are held responsible in the study of stress. These are the multi dimensionality of the subject, the definition of stress, its direct relationship on the changing behavior of individuals and the increasing negative effects of stress on productivity. Work stress is further defined by Beeher and Newman (1978) as "a condition arising from the interaction of people and their jobs and characterized by changes within people that force them to deviate from their normal functioning." There is a change in perception of the effects of stress on an individual. Some researchers like Spielberger (1979) suggest that work stress works positively within the organization and is one of the most important factors in improving productivity within the organization. Stress is therefore multi-dimensional and depends upon the organization whether they see it as a problem or as a solution. However, all one can suggest that medically, stress acts on the negative side of all individuals. It leads to frustration and haste and most importantly decreases the employee's job satisfaction. On the flipside, lack of work may cause complacency within the organization. Therefore it is important for managers to know where to draw the line between work and stress. Growing globalization has increased the needs of managers and under immense pressure they find it difficult to draw the line between work and stress. In simple words, managers should know exactly how much they can yield out of their employees by keeping them satisfied with the work.
Literature Review
It has been identified that globalization has been the primary cause of concern for the work related stress. Globalization is broadly defined as the idea by which we understand the transition of human society into the third millennium (Waters, 2002, p.1). It is also defined as a strategic effort to treat the world or a significant part of it as a single market in which to do business in (Tallman and Fladmore-Lindquist, 2002). A research conducted by (Madeline, W) suggested that there are concerns over the impact of stress on the IS manager's health and productivity. The rapid growth in information technology and communication has caused and awareness of the global economy amongst the minds of the people. El Sayed and Westup (2003) have said that the recent developments of technology and information have led to the formation of new and complex networks between national and global organizations. Stress in organizations has been deeply studied by many researchers (Robbins and Sanghi, 2006). There are various causes of stress that have been reasoned out by these researchers. Amongst them is the belief that problems in roles depend on job characteristics and their individual perception. It becomes vital therefore that job characteristics and personal factors would influence role stress. Various researchers have found out the different factors which affect work stress. Age, hierarchical level, and functional assignments are some of the factors researched by Srivastav (2005, 2007). Other researchers have stated the relationships of length of service and role stress. Many, on the other hand have denied any significant relationship of role stress and length of service (Sen (1981), Surti (1982)).
Gupta (1988) and Kumar (1997) have found out a positive relationship between the length of service and organizational role stress. This shows that there is no continuity in the outcomes of the research. Researchers are themselves confused about the exact causes of work related stress. Given the fact that work stress depends on individual perception, we can say that the researchers did a fairly good job of determining some factors. Non-agreement on certain points can be considered since the whole concept of stress is perceived differently by different individuals. In this paper, the author tries to assess the difference in the levels of stress experienced by the public and private sectors of India. The effects of stress are varying. Some researchers suggest that stress plays an important role in motivating the employees and for the overall business while a majority of researchers say that stress in organizations lead to various problems. Other than the healthy concerns, stress causes false decision making, haste and frustration.
The sources of stress are innumerable. They are classified into different dimensions. The following are some common dimensions stress causes are classified into.
1: Social Stress: resulting out of family pressures, or bereavement.
2: Financial or psychological stress a result of loss of job or other financial troubles.
3: Sources related to work
4: Ambiguous role definitions
5: Responsibility of other people.
While there are other few causes of stress as well, we shall limit our research onto the above factors with particular focus on the work related stress.
Since stress has multiple dimensions to it, it is studied in different disciplines such as Clinical and Applied Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychosomatic Medicine, Industrial Relations and Epidemiology. There are various negative effects on stress with regards to the business of any organization. As researched by (Maslach and Jackson, 1981; Matteson and Ivancivich, 1987), stress can cause staff turnover and absenteeism (Warshow, 1979). They also concluded that it can negatively effect productivity and employee health (Cooper and Payne, 1988). Work stress is a major factor as it influences human functioning in emotional, mental and psychological ways (Arroba and James, 1987). Kinney (1985) stated that biological changes affect the way we think while Speilberger (1979) said that work stress is one of the most important factors affecting work productivity. Deneen (1998) noted that the stress level of employees have increased twice the number of times from 1985 to 1990 and have cost the US economy more than $200 billion. Job stress as stated by Turner (1998) that effects of stress ranges from traumatic experiences such as fire or bombings, to injury or violence. There have been a innumerable studies carried out on the effects of work related stress in United States which have all shown a fall in the overall turnover of the organization facing stress problems. In fact, work stress has been taken so seriously in the United states that once it was named as the "disease of 20th century (Krohe, 1999). Wages is one factor which seriously affects job satisfaction. The problem is a bit too serious for a country like India. India being a predominantly rural country with a population of more than 1 billion people has access to cheap labor. Looking back at the Indian population and labor literature, Indiahas grown at an annual rate of 2.27 percent in urban areas and 0.66 per cent in rural areas (Chaddha, 2001). The public and private sectors account for majority of the employment in India. Out of the total employment, the public sector has enjoyed about 70% of the organized employment which is seen as a decrease from the year 1991.
A diverse literature is still lacking in some parts. The literature does not have the particular distinction between the public and private sectors of India. The work stress level in these sectors is undetermined. In this paper, we seek to find out the major differences between the stress level of public and private sectors of India. We shall first take a look at the Indian market and the employment ratios's and then look at two different sectors separately to make a distinction. We conclude by highlighting the key differences in both the sectors.
The Indiai Market- Employment Figures in Public and Private Sectors
India is predominantly an oil producing country. Unemployment rates in India are high and more so in the rural areas (7.86%) as compared to the urban areas (3.86%). Indiai labor statistics make an official distinction between the organized and un-organized sectors based on size and unemployment. The organized sector is what we focus on. It consists on the public and private sectors. The employment in the public sector consists of civilian government employees and public enterprises. Units employing over 10 or more workers fall in the private organized category while others are in the private sector unorganized category. Such is the current architecture of the country in terms of employment.
Key Factors Affecting Stress Levels
Stress levels have been long related to job satisfaction (Singh, 2009). Job satisfaction is connected strongly to wages and salary. Therefore, wages and monetary gains have an important part to play in the assessment of stress levels. While assessing the remuneration and monetary levels in India, it must be noted that India has mostly expatriate labor.
Within the unorganized sector, the most robust relationship is between earnings and productivity (Patel and Gandhi, 1998; Mitra, 2001). However, there is hardly an evidence of the wage differentials of the Indiai labor market since there is scarcity of data. Data supplied from the annual report of OCCI in 2009 suggested that there was higher remuneration of workers in the public sector as compared to the private sector. People employed in the public sector owned by the government have nearly twice as high the number of salary as their counterparts in the private sector (of course taking average into consideration). Authors who have tried to account for the differences in human capital in the public and private sectors in India and investigating wage differentials have all relied upon the Degree Holders and Technical Personnel (DHTP) conducted by the 1981 Census of India. Madheswaran (1998) have decomposed the DHTP and showed that the average ratio of the public and private wage was divided to 0.85 superior to the private sector. Blinder and Oxaca (1973) also found that the private sector employees are much highly paid than the public sector ones and the reason for that goes to the fact that private sector pays a much higher premium than the public sector. Thus, there is a strong discrimination in terms of the wages and ultimately the job satisfaction in the public and private sectors.
Comparison of Work Stress
The organizational work stress is dependent on various factors. Managers as well as employees are facing the problems of stress despite changing technologies that have made lives easy. Many studies conducted over the years have accounted the stress levels of employees in various organizations. Amongst the public sector genre, banks are studied deeply. Studies conducted by Kumar et al (2009) concluded that women in the private sector banks are more susceptible to high stress levels than the men. Public sector banks have more room for development and a low attraction in the eyes of the employees. Therefore, the study depicts results suggesting that the stress levels in private banks are more than those in public banks. In India, public sector is also blamed for being lazy in their tasks. Private sectors cannot afford to be complacent and therefore experience higher levels of stress. Women prefer jobs in public sector and government organizations as compared to men due to reasons of low workload and preference in organizations. In India, most of the government aided educational institutes have a majority of women employees. There is a wide preference in terms of job timings in public sector as compared to the private ones. Aziz (2003) conducted a research on the Indian IT industry and found out that men were more stressed out than women in the industry. This is contradictory to the results of the public sector bank. Therefore, the gender differences in stress levels vary from one industry to another. Public sectors generally differ in the perks and wages they offer to their employees. India especially being a poor country, jobs are not preferred by public sectors. In the urban market, workers are generally younger in the private sector than in the public sector. In terms of other factors, the educational level of employees is more or less same in both the sectors although the public sector again enjoys a slight edge over the private sector. In the formal private sector, there is still a high proportion of illiterate women. In the un-organized private sector, comprising of home based businesses there is almost 40% illiterate population. Private sectors have a majority of production related jobs. Technicians and professional applicants are a majority in the public sector.