Job stress factors affecting quality of work life (QWL) amongst employees of Bangladeshi banks

Abstract

The Quality of Work Life (QWL) refers to the existence of a certain set of conditions within an organisational setting that becomes one of the major issues in service-oriented organisations. The banking sector, as a service organisation plays a significant role in the economic growth and employee performance, through improved QWL can support the growth by sectoral development. Since reducing job stress can improve QWL, this study investigates the factors of job stress affecting the QWL of employees. Although numerous studies examined job stress factors, the proposed research significantly contributes to the body of knowledge associated with reduction of job stress and QWL improvement, which may become a stepping stone in the contemporary research agenda. Challenges of the dynamic banking sector force employees to cope with the work-life balance issues linked with QWL. There are pertinent literature review which highlighted other four issues such as (job insecurity (JI), work overload (WO), role conflict (RC) as well as organisational structure and environment (OSE) which has close relationship with QWL. From the literature, the researcher hypothesised that those issues related with QWL might have been influenced by job stress to a greater extent. Employing a quantitative methodology, the researcher initiated a comprehensive framework and modeled the relationship between factors. A survey design was employed to 267 private and public bank employees. The Structural Equation Modeling was used for analysis. The findings indicate that JI, WO and OSE are positively related, whereas RC has an inverse relationship with the variable. Job stress is found to be negatively related to QWL. The findings also indicate that job stress serves as a mediator between the variables, such as JI and QWL, RC and QWL, OSE and QWL. However, it does not mediate the relationship between WO and QWL. Supplementary findings reveal, religious coping style moderates the relationship between job stress and QWL. There is no significant difference in job stress observed between the employees of public and private banks. The study contributes significantly on the present knowledge by focusing the important areas of QWL improvement. The researcher identifies the root cause of job stress and proposed reduction measures. The cross-sectional research setting may have some set back in explaining the causal relationship, but it opens up the window for future research opportunities with longitudinal design structure. Thus, it may be undoubtedly expressed that the present research findings create a base for supporting future research initiatives.