Job Stress and Quit Intention for Office Clerks in Shanghai

Purpose

Stress has become one of the most serious health problems in the world today, especially in rapidly developing cities where employees need to continuously cope with the changing working environment. Under this circumstance, how to reduce or release employee's stress and retain good staff? Therefore, this study aims to examine the relationship among job stress, job satisfaction and employees' intention to quit for office clerks in Shanghai.

Methods

The Sources of Stress Scale, Job Satisfaction Scale and the Coping Strategies Scale of the Occupational Stress Indicator II Chinese Version (OSI II, Siu, 1997, 2002) and Godin Leisure Time Exercise Questionnaire (Godin & Shepherd, 1985) were the testing instruments. SPSS 15.0 was used for data analysis.

Analysis/Results

Totally 190 office clerks in Shanghai participated in the present study. There were 116 male and 72 female, the other two unknown. Their age ranged from 19 to 50 years old (mean = 29, SD = 4.92). Independent Sample T-test and one-way ANOVA analyses were conducted to test the relationships among job stress and gender, marital status, education background, organization size and type (mainly foreign-invested, fully domestic-invested, mainly domestic-invested). No significant difference was found. Pearson Correlation analysis between job stress and physical activity participation also reported no significant association. However, Pearson Correlation analysis indicated mild correlation between job stress and quit-job intention (r = .26, p < .01), and moderate correlation between job satisfaction and quit-job intention (r = -.32, p < .001). Standard Regression analysis indicated that job stress (Beta = .23, p < .05) and job satisfaction (Beta = -.30, p < .01) were predicators of clerks' quit intention (ĢR2 = .14, p < .001). The results also revealed that "being undervalued", "implications of the mistakes you make", "opportunities for personal development", "morale and organizational climate", and "under promotion" were the most common stressors for office clerks.

Conclusions

Higher job stress leads to higher intention to quit. To retain good staff, it is important for organizations to help reduce or release their job stress, help them to identify effective coping strategies, and foster positive organizational climate.