Occupational Stress and Job Performance in Small and Medium Scale Enterprises

Occupational stress is ubiquitous at work places and has recently gained numerous researches because of the impact it has on employees’ job performance. Unlike developing and newly industrialized countries, most advanced countries are becoming more familiar with the phenomenon and how to manage it. The current study finds out the level of occupational stress of SMEs on demographic variables and also determines the impact of occupational stress on employees’ job performance. A total of 225 employees working in SMEs were purposively selected for the study. Percentages, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient and regression were used to analyze the data gathered. The results showed that, 47 (20.9%) of the employees recorded low levels of occupational stress, 74 (32.9%) were moderately stressed and 104 representing 46.2% were highly stressed. The results showed that majority of the © Affum-Osei, Agyekum, Addo & Asante Licensed under Creative Common Page 2 employees were moderately and highly stressed. The results further showed inverse relationship between occupational stress and employees’ job performance and that occupational stress significantly predicted job performance. It is recommended that more research should be conducted in developing countries. Again, relevant institutions in developing and newly industrialized countries should engage in more collaborative programmes and policies with international institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), The National Institutions for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Australian Safety and Compensation Council, and European Agency for Safety and Health to help ameliorate occupational stress.