International Journal of Business and Management Invention ISSN
(Online): 2319 - 8028, ISSN (Print): 2319 - 801X www.ijbmi.org Volume 2
Issue 81 August 20131 PP.28-33
Significance of General Well-being of IT Professionals in India
1 2
Preethi vijaimadhavan ’ Dr. D. Venkatrama Raju
‘(Vets University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India)
2
(Department of Commerce, Pachaiyappa’s College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India)
ABSTRACT: General well-being is the extent to which an individual feels good or content with their life as a
whole. The aim of this study was to explore the factors influencing the General well-being ofprofessionals also to
find the significance of general well-being of IT professionals working in IT industry. Questionnaire was
designed to collect data on issues related to well-being of employees. Sample of eight hundred and twenty six
respondents were collected from employees working in IT organizations. The factor analysis was applied to find
the underlying variance among the variables. The collected data were analyzed and it produced 3 factors which
were significant and influencing the General well-being of IT employees they are Physical health, depressive
symptom and work stress. Conclusion of the study is elaborated.
KEYWORDS: General well-being, IT, Physical health, Depressive symptom, work stress
I. INTRODUCTION
Global changes and new managerial challenges require new
concepts of health and well-being in organizational contexts.
General well being is the extent to which an individual feels
good or content with their life as a whole. General well-being
is conceptualized as influencing and, being influenced by,
work. (Simon & Darren 2012) well-being in general is a person’s
overall feeling; good or bad. The whole spectrum of feelings
ranges from positive feelings such as pleased, satisfied, or
energetic to negative feelings including sad, depressed or
unsatisfied Newel (2002)(Alla, Simona, 2008) well-being in the
workplace does not depend exclusively on external conditions in
terms of the working and organizational environment within
which the individual operates: so, it could be promoted not
only from above, through actions by management, but also from
below, influencing individual traits and behaviours. (Simon &
Darren 2012) To increase work effectiveness and performance, it
is important to address a number of issues, including
increasing motivation among the employees, making them feel
satisfied with their job, and increase their job-related well-
being in general. In such a way it is important to explore the
concept of a jobrelated well-being, because this is exactly
that feeling an employee feels while working. (Alla, Simona,
2008) Although, the health and well-being of workforce has
improved due to the disappearance of harsh and hazardous work
in the last century, workforce are again at risk because of the
nature of contemporary work especially in IT industries is
psychologically demanding. Therefore, job demands that cause
strain can be detrimental to individual health, thus leading to
psychological distress and health complaints (Gunaseelan &
Ismail 2008). There is a growing body of evidence linking
health and well-being to key business issues. Dispite this,
corporate uptake of work place health promotion programmes has
been slow. The last decade has been increasing interest in the
health and well-being of the workforce (Peter 2005). To achieve
the organizational objective and to be successful it is
important that its employees are satisfied with their work,
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Ka i s er-IVl ev e r- O Ikin
Sampling Ade qua cy .370
Bartlett's Test of Approx. 3379.4
Sphericity Chi-Square 75 Significance of General Well-being
df 105
OOO ofIT
C omp II.Rotation Sums
OBJECTIVES
of THE STUDY
OFSquare d.
onent Initial Eigenvalue s I_o a din ^
The Oobjectives of this study are to identify the factors
influencing
-o
Varianc
f
the well-being %
Cunmlat of an
Varianc
of
employee
Curnul and to identify the
inter-correlation
Total e- ive & between
Total the
e factors that
ative ■“■ a. are derived from the
i study.3 1 .520
4.72S 3 1 .520 3.53S 23.5 3 7 23.537
2 1.324 12.161 43.63 1 2.3 70 1 5.300 393S6
3 1.160 7.73 2 5 1 .41 2 1.304 1 2.026 5 1 .4 1 2
4 1.00 7 6.714 5S.127 III. RESEARCH METHOD
5 .S26 The response population for this study was employees
5.50 5 63 .63 2
6 working in IT industry. A convenient sampling method was
74S 4.9S4 6 S .6 1 6
7 applied for obtaining the data. Questionnaire was prepared
.636 4.570 73.1 36
3 based on previous research on wellbeing The questionnaire was
.617 4.115 77302
9 .5 92 3.94 7 S 1 .24 S
distributed among professional working in IT Organization.
.53 1 3 .543 34.791
io Total of 826 responses were collected. This study is based on
11 .509 3393 S3.1 34
12
primary data and secondary data. Primary data was collected
.4 76 3.1 74 9 1 359
13 from 826 IT professionals. Questionnaire was designed to
.44 3 2.9 3 5 94343
14 collect data on issues related to Quality of Work life.
.43 7 2.9 13 9 7.2 56
15 Variables in 100.000
.4 12 2.744 the questionnaire were selected based on the
previous studies. The questionnaire was randomly distributed to
software professionals working in IT organization. A total of
826 employees in IT sector responded to the survey. A
quantitative research design was employed beginning with the
literature review to guide the design of the interview
questionnaires. The study focused on IT professional’s Quality
of work life. Items was measured using Linkert’s scale.
Empirical research work has been carried out to understand the
relationship among the construct of QWL of IT employees. The
Tahl& I Bartlett^ Test
From the above table it is found that KMO measure of
sampling adequacy is .870, Bartlett’s test of sphericity with
approx chi square value 3379.475 are statistically significant
at 5% level. This shows that the sample size of the research is
adequate and they form a normal distribution. This leads to the
verification of range of variance for all the 15 variables. he
15 variable exhibit the variances ranging from 0.324 to 0.714.
IT Toial Variance SUXJPIZZ tried
Extraction Metliod: Principal Component Analysis.
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Significance of General Well-being ofIT
the explanatory factor analysis was performed with
maximum probability approach and the variables were interpreted
with Varimax rotation approach. The results showed that three
factors came out from the “Well Being” component with special
values bigger than 1. The cumulative variance of these 3
factors is 51.412%. These 3 factors process individual
variances that are 23.587%, 15.800%, 12.026% respectively.
The following variables formed the 1st factor:
1. Enough sleep
2. Healthy food habit
3. Enough physical exercise
4. Often skip breakfast/lunch
for work Therefore this factor
is named as Physical Health
The 2nd factor was formed by the following variables:
1. Bullied at work
2. Stress affecting social life
3. Lack of energy or headache
4. Feeling rushed at work
5. Difficulties in falling asleep or
recurrent awakening at night
Therefore this factor is named as
Depressive symptom
The 3rd factor was formed by the following variables:
1. Stressful work
2. Conflict with colleagues
3. Too many mistakes at work
4. Feeling depressed because of work related problems.
Therefore this factor is named as Work Stress
4.1 Factors of General Well-being
The factors emerging from General well-being also
indicate how important it is for an employee and employer to
have a favorable job related response. Due to the competitive
work environment employees are always under pressure of
deadlines in completing the task. This leads the employee to
ignore the other important aspects around him or her. They lack
in interpersonal communication with peer which results in a
poor relationship with colleagues. In the urge of finishing the
job many choose to avoid or postponed the breakfast or lunch
which results in health related problems. Human capital is the
most valuable asset and reason for the success of an
organization. An unhealthy and stressful employee is a cost to
the organization. Working while sick is known as presenteeism.
Presenteeism cost more to an employer than absenteeism. When an
employee report to work while illness or do not operate to the
usual level of productivity due to stress or depressive it
affects both quantity and the quality of the work output. A
research conducted on presenteeism in 2006 indicated that,
depression costed $35 billion in terms of reduced performance
while pain conditions such as arthritis, headaches and back
aches problems cost nearly $ 47 billion. Pain, no matter what
the cause, will always translate into lost time at work.
In a study on well-being by (Johannes, Morten, Olaf,
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FH DE5 WS
PH Fmu:son Couelation L 31*(**) .233C")
SIE. (2-TAILED) .000 .000
DES Pearson Conrelstion “NWT 1 .£47;~0
SIE. (2 -TAILED) .000 .000 Significance of General
WS FESISOL LOUELAION .647C**) L Well-being ofIT
SIE. .000 .000
4.1.2 Depressive symptom:
Some employers allow employees to take a nap at work
time. One of the reasons for the changing attitudes towards
sleeping at work is the growing recognition of the cost to
business of sleep deficiency among employees. These costs
include: increased errors and accidents, increased absenteeism,
increased drug use, increased turnover, higher group insurance
premiums, decreased productivity. (Henerietta, Tamas 2010)
Depression is another form of stress that contributes towards
the deterioration of health. Employees develop various symptoms
of stress that can harm job performance, health and even
threaten the ability to cope with the environment. (Gunaseelan
& Ismail 2008)
4.1.3 Work Stress
Work stress is defined as the harmful physical and
emotional responses that occur when the requirements of a job
do not match the capabilities, resources or needs of the
worker. Work stress can increase risk for heart disease,
psychological disorders and other health problems. Early
warning sign of work stress includes disturbed sleep,
difficulty in concentration, nervous, long working hours and
heavy job responsibilities. Feeling constant pressure and time
4.2 Parametric relationship among the factors of General Well-Being
Table III
Table III shows the correlation between the three factors
that were identified to be significant for the General well-
being of employees. The inter correlation between the factors
are elaborately discussed with literature support. Physical
Health is positively and moderately correlated to Depressive
symptom (.316, p=.000) and work stress (.233, p=.000) at 5%
level. Depressive symptom is positively correlated to work
stress (.647, p=.000) at 5% level. This implies that the
increase in depressive symptoms will have effects on physical
health illness. And also stress at work for an employee
eventually leads to depression. From an individual perspective,
stress is related to a wide variety of health related problems,
V. SUGGESTION
Improving the general well-being of people at work is
best tackled through a positive approach, with attention being
paid to prevention and health promotion rather than simply
responding with provision of help when problems arise. In
training and motivation programs organization should include
health activities, session on handling pressure and team
building activities. Improving employee general well-being can
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HR Policy rrainingProgramm.es
■ Health and safety ■ First Aid
■ Career development and talent ■ Time management
management - Stress awareness/management - Significance of General Well-being ofIT
■ Career breaks, Flexible working Assertiveness
■ Special
5.1 leave -People management ■Leadership
General Well Being Initiatives:
■ Work life balance andhome- development
working
Initiatives that can be taken for the well-being of IT
- Managing attendance
■ professionals
Child care vouchers are listed
■ below
Coaching and Mentoring
■ Disability ■ Change management
■ Diversity and Equal Opportunity ■ Conflict management
■ Bullying and harassment ■ Teambuildin
■ Managing attendance
■ Performance management
■ Staff attitude survey
■ Stress survey
■ Welfare Supp ort Service
Corporate Social Responsibility Health Promotion
■ Communitv outreach ■Health awareness roadshows / events
* Prince’s Tmst ■ Health promotion news
* Blood donation - Health seminar
■ Charitable fundraising - Safe workplaces
* Re-cycling - clean restrooms
■Eamily days - Exercise l gym space
* Sporting events
Source: Robert Kerr. Managing Wellbeing
VI. CONCLUSION
The aim of this study was to explore the factors
significant to the well-being of employees working in IT
industry. Interpretation of data produced three factors which
influence the well-being Physical health, depressive symptom and work stress. It is
necessary to understand the importance of good sleep to health,
productivity and safety. The consequences of lack of sleep and
poor sleep, and to find out what can be done to improve
employees’ sleep problems. An unstrained work environment
ensures good health and psychological conditions which enable
the employees to perform job and non-work related functions
without inhibitions. Thus, it leads to an unstressful work
environment providing comfortable work life. (Gunaseelan &
Ismail 2008). A healthy lifestyle must be adopted to combat
these diseases with a proper balanced diet, physical activity
and by giving due respect to biological clock. To decrease the
ailments caused by occupational postures, one should avoid long
sitting hours and should take frequent breaks for stretching or
for other works involving physical movements (Mukesh, Majumdar
2010). Results would be useful for developing training,
workplace counselling, and organizational development
activities aimed to support small groups, leaders, and other
strategic players in the construction of the subsystems of
wellbeing in the workplace.
REFERENCES
Journal Papers:
[1] . Chandranshu Sinha Factors affecting Quality of Work life:
Empirical Evidence From Indian
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Significance of General Well-being ofIT
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doi:10.1186/1471-2458-9-435
[6] . Guna Seelan Rethinam, Maimunah Ismail, Constructs of
Quality of Work Life: A Perspective of
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