This study explored employees' perceptions of organisational change as a stressor
within a public sector work place undergoing significant change. A number of
major stress-producing factors in that environment were examined and data
collected of employees' perceptions of the nature of stress, changes in health status
and data gathered of stress-related compensation claims. Data was also collected
of employees' perceptions of effective strategies for coping with change from an
individual and organisational perspective.
The research design was a case study with embedded units of analysis
incorporating elements of quantitative analysis. The method was chosen to flesh
out the limited choices offered by many standard questionnaires.
A case study approach and various categories of stress-related factors were
selected measures to evaluate the perceived effects of work place change on stress
levels. The eight females and three males, aged 27�50 were each interviewed for
an hour for their perceptions of stress and reports of stress related illness,
relationship changes and other reported changes�diet, sleep, heart disease,
asthma, anxiety and headaches. Workplace changes to the Division were
analysed, Departmental claims officers were interviewed and Comcare data
analysed.
Results show participants appeared to feel or experience "stress" in a way which
they distinguished as different from feelings or experiences which were nonstressful
states and they appeared able to separate these states and ascribe to each
particular qualities. They also seemed able to identify that the stressful state
occurred in response to some form of demands. Some subjects (36%) reported
developing strategies for managing their stress.
The majority of subjects (82%) believed work place change was inevitable and a
number of subjects (45%) reported they believed implementation of change to be
poorly managed, while some subjects (36%) perceived change impacting
negatively on the work place.
On the basis of the results, it would appear that a human resource management
framework may enable more successful implementation of change in public sector
organisations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218803 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Bryant, Gerdina, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Gerdina Bryant |
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