How is stress perceived? The impact of financial compensation and education requirements on stress.

Take a Moment to think about this…

83% of US workers suffer from workplace related stress. But what causes this stress?

There could be many factors that play a role in workplace stress, but in this study we focused on compensation and education requirements

Main Independent Variable: Financial Compensation

- Construct definition : the act of providing a person with money or other things of economic value in exchange for their services and goods

- Operational definition : participants read a story about a person receiving either above average or below average financial compensation; the level of compensation the person received was randomly assigned

Moderator Independent Variable: Job education level requirement

- Construct definition : the education experience level an employer may see as a requirement to be considered for the position of that job

- Operational definition : participants read a story about a person pursuing a job that either required a college degree or did not; the education requirement for the person’s job was randomly assigned

Dependent Variable: Workplace Stress

-Construct definition : the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the resources or needs of the worker

- Operational definition : Participants determined how stressed the person in the story was using a 7-point scale with 1 being that the person was not stressed at all and 7 being that they were completely stressed

Hypothesis

Results

Discussion

-Limitations of the study: Sample size

-Strengths of the study: Random sampling

-Implications: Being able to recognize the factors that play into workplace stress and prevent burnout rate before it happens. Doing this will allow companies to reduce voluntary turnover of their employees.

That being said…

The results of this study were not significant. Thus, financial compensation and education level did not have a significant affect on workplace stress.

Final Statement

Employers, though there was no significant relation between financial compensation, education level, and workplace stress be sure to check in with your employees and make sure that they are in a good place mentally. This could not only boost job satisfaction and commitment but also allow your employees to know that they are seen and heard!