The impact of job stress on employee performance: evidence from female academics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Abstract

Job stress is a regular occurrence in everyday work life situations and females in academia are not an exception to this fact. It has been suggested by numerous studies that job stress will continuously be on the rise due to various factors such as career advancement, technological advancements and changes in the business environment of organisations. The present day academic environment has moved from the old ways of doing things to more technologically and research based ways. Increasingly, the academic’s job profile has extended beyond teaching and learning to include research and publications, supervision, consultation and administration and so forth, thus, resulting in increased stress levels in academics, more especially for female academics who have to include various domestic obligations to their workloads. Given this background, the study aims to examine the impact of job stress on female academic performance. The study focused on female academics who are full-time permanent employees at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). The Pietermaritzburg (PMB) campus of UKZN was considered for the study site. The research explored the impact of job stress on these female academics and investigated the strategies these academics use to achieve work-life balance. The study is a quantitative study, where data was collected from 54 respondents and analysed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. The findings of the study show that workload remains a stressor in an academic environment. Time allotment continues to pose as a challenge. Because of the work overload, the associated stress affects the health and motivation of the female academic staff. The findings also suggested that gender has no significant relationship with workload. Thus, the researcher recommended a review of incentives, time to time conduct surveys to measure the organisational stressors and determine a proactive solution and core awareness on stress management strategies.