The present paper deals with a study of exploring any correlation between the state of peer relationship of an employee with the amount of work stress experienced by him or her. The relationship of an employee with his or her colleagues has always played a major role in the factors like job satisfaction and attrition rate. This paper is an attempt to understand whether such relation between peer relationships and work stress exist or not. The study is a pilot study conducted in only Insurance sector and restricted to the city of Rajkot due to lack of funds and manpower. The results derived through the study can be useful to conduct a larger research and can also be fruitful for the HR divisions of organizations to devise a strategy to reduce the amount of work stress experienced by employees.
KEYWORDS: Peer Relationship, Role Identity, Role Conflict, Peer Cohesiveness.
Introduction Work Stress is probably one of the most common phenomenon seen in the work force employed in the organizations. While certain type of typical stress is needed to create an environment of performance standards, an excess amount of stress can easily turn into a “burnout” and can result into physical and mental wellbeing.
“Duress” as it is referred to creates imbalance in work and personal life and also, in extreme cases results into depression and demotivation. In current fast phased life, the common stressors which are generally identified are as follow:
Work stress has long lasting effects on physical, mental and even emotional conditions of an employee. It is heard a lot in current times that work related stress even causes loss in family endeavors and the enthusiasm to pursue career aims. In current Indian corporate situation, almost all sectors have a lot of the above stressors. One sector among all is the Insurance sector. The insurance sector of India is growing at a pace of 10.99% year on year which is the second fastest growth rate in the world as far Insurance sector is concerned. The sector has 24 life insurance organizations who are engaged in fierce competition on the price and services front to gain more market share. It could be a convenient assumption that these conditions leave the employees with high amount of work stress. Peer relationships on the other hand are an emerging concept in HR. A few researches have claimed that healthy peer relationship can reduce a considerable amount of industrial grievances and disputes. The current research is an attempt to understand and seek any relation between health/unhealthy peer relationships and work stress. The research is conducted in a small area as a pilot study and the researcher aims at projecting it on larger canvas.
