TABLE OF CONTENT
TITLE PAGE i
CERTIFICATION ii
DEDICATION iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv
ABSTRACT v
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION 2
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 2
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 2
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY 3
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 3
1.5 HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY 3
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 3
1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 3
1.8 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY 4
1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS 4
1.10 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 6
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 7
2.1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 7
2.2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 14
2.3 EMPIRICAL FRAMEWORK 16
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 18
3.2 POPULATION SIZE 18
3.3 SAMPLE SIZE 19
3.4 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT 19
3.5 METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS 19
3.6 RELIABILITY OF THE STUDY 20
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3.7 VALIDITY OF THE INSTRUMENT 20
3.8 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT 20
3.9 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY 20
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION OF RESULT 22
4.1 INTRODUCTION 22
4.2 PRESENTATION OF DATA 23
4.3 ANALYSIS OF RESPONSE 24
4.4 HYPOTHESIS TESTING 26
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 26
5.1 SUMMARY 26
5.2 CONCLUSION 27
5.3 RECOMMENDATION 27
QUESTIONNAIRE 28
REFERENCES 29
APPENDIX 30
vi
ABSTRACT
The study investigated and evaluated job stress and its effect on employees performance at Unilever Nigeria Plc. The study sought to find out how work related stress could affect the productivity of staff of Unilever Nigeria Plc. In addition, it identified certain factors which contribute to job stress among Unilever Nigeria Plc. The systematic sampling technique was used to select 80 participants for the study. The result of this study revealed that work load was the major cause of job stress on employee performance in Unilever Nigeria Plc. It was further observed that respondent in order to relieve stress often walk around and visit other colleagues in their office to discuss matters irrelevant to work thereby affecting productivity at the Unilever Nigeria Plc.
Health-wise, some members of staff of Unilever Nigeria Plc had developed chronic back pain, an effect of long sitting hours and standing hours at work. Management commitment to staff issues such as paying attention to work load conflicts, supervisors recognition of outstanding output of staff and the introduction of proper stress management training programmes were perceived as significant steps which if embraced were identified as major contributory factors that could contribute to improve productivity of staff and boost output of staff.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
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. Omolara (2008) described occupational stress as the adverse psychological and physical reactions that occur in an individual as a result of their being unable to cope with the demands being made on them.
According to Topper (2007) Vermut and Stensma (2005), Ornels and Kleiner (2003) Verca (1999) in addition, job stressed is caused by lack of resources and equipment, work schedules such as working late or overtime and organizational climate are considered as contributors to staff stress.
Stress can therefore be described as the adverse 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 and Griffen, 1998).
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. Therefore, this is to find out the effect of job stress on staff performance and management and staff to manage stress effectively at Unilever Nigeria Plc. To acquire a clearer understanding of variable of job stress.
1.2 PROBLEM OF THE STUDY
The current turbulent environment in which some worker conduct their work require that organization examine their practices working in the Unilever Nigeria Plc is an inherently stressful profession with long working hours, heavy workloads, difficult customer and conflicting demand. The effects of stress are evidenced as increase errors in lateness to work, low productivity and increased sick leaves. Despite the extremely negative effect of job stress on human body and work performance.
It is in this view that this study is being conducted to identify the effect of stress has on the productivity of staffs of Unilever Nigeria Plc. Furthermore, there has not been a conscious establishment of a linkage between job stress and its negative effect on productivity.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study are to:
- Ascertain the causes of stress in an organization
- Find out whether stress has any effect on the productivity of staffs in an organization.
- Find out how Staffs in any organization handle stress.
- To examine the effect of job stress on staff productivity in the work place
- Support of those people who are suffering from stress.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following questions guided the study
- What are the effects of stress of employee in an organization?
- What are the effect of stress on the productivity of the staffs in an organization?
- How do staffs in an organization handle stress?
- What stress management strategies have been employed by organization to help staff to manage stress?
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
Research hypothesis are in two forms:
H0: There is no significant relationship between job stresses and job productivity.
H1: There is a significant relationship between job stresses and job productivity.
H0: Organization do not adopt any stress management strategies to help staff manage stress.
H1: Organization adopt stress management strategies to help staff manage stress
1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study focused on Unilever Nigeria Plc. as one of the major ports of entry in Nigeria so as to get an in depth and comprehensive understanding of what is happening at Unilever Nigeria Plc and makes the research meaningful.
Drawbacks are an inevitable part of almost every venture individuals carry out and overcoming them prepares or fortifies one for other tasks ahead. Even though these challenges to some extent hampered the progress of the study, they also helped in putting researchers on their toes to work tirelessly around the clock in making the success of this study a reality.
1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study was to find out the effects of stress on staff productivity. The researcher ensures the effective management of stress for their employees. The study will also add to existing store of knowledge. It will also provide suggestions on how to reduce the effects of stress on output. Again, it will be a source for further research and of relevance to stakeholders.
1.8 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This study was necessarily limited in scope due to series of resource limitations as well as practical research limitations and notable ones were: Time constraint, in the sense that time allocated for conducting this study was very short to allow for adequate data collection and this short time had to be divided between the main academic work which included preparation for face to face and examinations.
- The reluctance of respondents to answer the questionnaire during the data collection process which was critical in providing the needed inputs for the research work. This has been the problem in Unilever, where information flow could be tainted with excessive bureaucracy and suspicion and sometimes fears of victimization by superior officers. Some respondents did not cooperate with the researcher during the data collection period.
- Financial constraint was also a problem the researcher faced in undertaking the study. This is because the case study area was in Western Region while the researcher was in Eastern Region.
1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Definition of term will expatiate more on the following term:
- JOB STRESS: come in different forms and affects your mind and body in different ways, small things can make you feel stressed. Such as a copy machine that never seems to work when you need it or phone that wont quit ringing. Major stress comes from having too much or not enough work or doing work that doesn’t satisfy you.
- JOB STRESS: it can be defined as any adductive demand on an individual caused by physical, emotional or mental factors that requires coping behavior.
- JOB STRESS: it can be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirement of the job do not match the capabilities, resources or needs of the worker. Stress also occurs when the situation has high demands on the worker. Job stress can lead to poor health and injury.
- PRODUCTIVITY: this is another method that seeks to pay workers or compensate workers according to their productivity level. Productivity gains are vital to the economy because they allow us to accomplish more with less. Productivity is measured and tracked by many economists as a due for predicting future levels of GDP growth. Productivity can be influenced by either increasing the value or decreasing the time and cost that goes into creating the value.
- EFFECTIVENESS: this is doing the right thing or the ability of an organization to service or what are goals achieved.
- PRODUCTIVITY: it measures how much each employee makes over a period of time. It is calculated by dividing total output by the number of workers.
- PLANNING: it is the pre determine objectives or goals destination. It is a mental process of setting objectives and determining the methods and requirement by which the objectives are achieved.
- EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY: efficiency is about making the best use of resources.
- DECISION MAKING: This is the action or process of making important decisions. It is a process of selecting a logical choice from the available options.
- PROCESS: It is a series of steps and decisions involved in the way work is completed.
1.10 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE UNILEVER NIGERIA PLC
Our corporate mission, when is to add vitality to life, is the very heart of Unilever. We seek to ensure that when people choose our brands, they are choosing vitality. The journey to achieve this began back in the 19th century.
Unilever Nigeria Plc, was incorporated as lever brother (West Africa) Ltd on 11th April, 1923 by Lord lever hulme, but the company antecedents have to be traced back to his existing trading interests in Nigeria and west Africa generally, and to the fact that he had since the 19th century been greatly involved with the soap business in Britain, Unilever Nigeria Plc started as a soap manufacturing organization in Nigeria. After services of mergers/acquisition, the company diversified into manufacturing and marketing of foods, non-soapy detergents and personal care products. These mergers/acquisition brought in Lipton Nigeria Ltd in 1985, cheese brought ponds industries Ltd in 1988. The company changed its name to Unilever Nigeria Plc in 2001.
Unilever Nigeria Plc is a public liability company quoted on the Nigeria stock exchange since 1973 with Nigerians currently having 48% of equity holdings.
Unilever Nigeria Plc, Agbara branch is indeed one of the most valuable and famous world largest producers of consumer goods. It operates in ten (10) countries through five hundred (500) or they are about companies, MD Aladejobi S.A.
As a matter of fact, the company in focus was established on “west Africa”, Soap Company limited when they did. Also about seven (7) years ago, the name was further altered to its present name Unilever Nigeria Plc.
Interestingly enough, sixty percent (60%) of firm’s equity share are owned by Nigerians in compliance the federal government indigenization decrees of 1997, while the rest forty percent (40%) are processed by Unilever Nigeria Plc and Lipton tea company Ltd.
Staff Capacity: Unilever plc has current workers spread over its 4 factions located at Apapa (Lagos State). Aba (Imo State), Agbara (ogun state) While its sales forces operates all over the nation. The head office of this prestigious company and the first factory is situated at 15, dockyard road, Apapa, lagos state. While the factory at Agbara Ogun State.
Product they produce
- Omo detergent
- Blueband Margarine
- Close up tooth paste
- Pear body cream and detergents
- Lipton tea
- Vaseline brand
The company Unilever Plc, Agbara has passed through an extremely interesting and a very enthralling growth version. It actually started in 1924 with the foundation of a few tonnages of laundry soap.
But currently Unilever has a total plant capacity of about 472,000 tones perineum, processing 34 of consumer’s item in about 60 pads size. Profit wise, Unilever recorded a pretax profit of N54million in 1987 and turnover of N273 million and it has been on increase to date.
Company Organization: In Unilever, the chairman or managing director is the Chief executive Officer (CEO) The Company, frictionally the viable company is segmented into six (6) operating divisions, which presented supervised by the vice chairman (deputy managing director). Aside this six (6) divisions, there exist corporation affairs audit, legal/secretarial department which functions are directly monitored by the chairman managing director. The divisions are marketing/commercial, personnel, and sales, technical and agricultural business.
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