JOB STRESS AND EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE AMONG OFFICERS IN PUBLIC SPORTS INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

Employees are the most critical assets of an organisation, but they experience stress in their job, resulting in physical and mental health problems that affect their performance. The impact of job stress on employee performance is an area of concern for organisations. Job stress affects employees who have work demands and pressures beyond their knowledge and ability to cope. Stressful workers incur healthcare costs due to stress-related illnesses that affect their work performances. The impact of stress on employees' performance and productivity of organisations caused the initiation of this research. The stress and job performance of sports officers are unknown. The study examined the impact of stress on the job performance of Malaysian sports officers to contribute to the filling of this knowledge gap. Three variables of job stress of role ambiguity, role conflict, and workload (Conant, 2016; Wijayanti & Fauzi, 2020) were used in the research. The methodology employed a questionnaire designed and administered to respondents and used descriptive and inferential statistics for the data analyses. The participants were 100 Malaysian sports officers, 30 were from the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), 20 were from the University College Shahputra, and 50 were from the Pahang Sports Council. All the participants completed a questionnaire that consisted of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Generic Job Stress Questionnaire (GJSQ). The result showed that most employees had moderate stress (n=57, 59.4%), and 58.3% (n=56) of the sports officers showed average work performance. It also showed a significant relationship between role ambiguity, role conflict, and workload and employee job stress, and the stress negatively affected their job performance (r=-0.927, p= 0.01). The results of this study are expected to contribute to an understanding of how job stress affects sports officers' performance. The management of organisations can use the findings to reduce job stress to enhance employees' wellbeing and productivity. For example, the management of Malaysian sports organisations could use how stress affects employee performance to develop policies and implement strategies to reduce job stress and improve employees' wellbeing and productivity. Findings from this study may also assist various human resource practitioners, researchers, and higher education institutions to build relevant policies to reduce employee stress to achieve a sustainable work-life balance practice within sports institutions. In addition, this study will also be used as a guide to researchers in the future. For example, it could be extended to organisations outside the sports industry and explore how occupation, years of employment, ethnicity, participation in physical activity, religion, and culture affect employees' stress and job performance.