OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AMONG OFFICE MANAGERS IN UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Stress is a major challenge in many of the organizations in the world today. It is also responsible for springing up diseases and illnesses such as high blood pressure, hypertension, diabetes, stroke among others, it also causes much suffering among employees. Some office managers are not productive just because they undergo stress on a daily bases which could stem from inability to balance work and personal life and also inability to identify those roles to be played at work. The study investigated the influence of work-life balance and role ambiguity on occupational stress among office managers in University of Ibadan. The study adopted the descriptive research design. A technique called total enumeration was adopted in the study as 136 office managers were used as the sample size. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. Inferential statistics of Pearson’s moment product correlation and regression was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. A significant positive relationship was found between work-life balance and occupational stress (r = 0.382; p<0.05); role ambiguity and occupational stress (r = 0.570 p<0.05). There was a joint influence of work-life balance and role ambiguity on occupational stress (F _{(2, 133)} = 33.127; P<0.05). There was significant relative contribution of role ambiguity (Beta = .605, t= 7.460, P<0.05) and work-life balance (Beta = .233, t= 3.898, P<0.05) on occupational stress of office managers. Office managers could therefore, control stress by improving their physiological capability to withstand the effects of stress which involves psychological and informational support from friends, co-workers, families, and others.