Generation X, Y and Stress at Work Place

R Raju, E Roopa, Rani
1980 unpublished
Education has achieved its purpose to the present day economies. It has changed the world to into a land full of opportunities and challenges in every walk of life. The educated population is increasing steadily along with the rapid demand in the global market. Education is taking the young and the old to places where they have not been before, meet people and work with people even in different continents. Workforce diversity emerged as an opportunity for many people who are willing to explore
more » ... heir careers at different places for a better life. The world's increasing globalization requires more interactions among people from diverse cultures, beliefs and backgrounds than ever before. People no longer live and work in an insular market place, they are now part of a worldwide economy with competition coming from nearly every continent. As competition increases, so does work stress on the organization and individual employees. Before, we understand workforce diversity and stress at workplace, work and generational approach to work must be viewed. Anna M. Ponzellini (2009)1 has studied elaborately on young people at wor their behavior and how to unbal-ance the generation gap at workplace. In her study she stated that relation to work (or work orientation) can be considered through two main perspectives: the relative importance attributed to work compared to other spheres in the existence and the kind of attachment towards different dimensions of work. From a sociological point of view, the position of work occupies in people's life has been summarized into the opposition between 'distance' and 'centrality' of wok in the life experience (Hamel)2. She continued the thought by including the psychological perspective by applying to work, the famous Maslow's (1954)3 hierarchy of needs-physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self actualization-most authors consider two main areas: the instrumental one, which refers to material and safety expectations, such as level of wage and job security, and the 'expres-sive' one, which includes social and symbolic expectations , as good relations and well-being at the workplace, autonomy, career success and feeling of social usefulness Any disruption between the individual's needs whether instrumental or expressive, has got all possibilities of producing stress at workplace which has a direct effect on the organization's productivity. Stress at workplace comes in different forms to different people when work places adapt workforce diversity.When we talk about diversity, in a group, the usual connotation is differences in race, age or physical appearance of people. Diversity need not be limited to racial differences that are evident, such as age, gender, height, weight, skin, eye and hair color. There are other less-evident differences-such as personality styles, abilities, motivations, goals and cultural background. These coupled with our distinguishing physical attributes; make us diverse and unique individuals. Need for the study: India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35. It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan; and, by 2030, India's dependency ratio should be just over 0.4 4. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the increasing diversification in the Indian workforce especially in the age group. Young employees at workplace usually face stress levels and are often found inadequate in overcoming workplace stress. This paper suggests various ways in which generation y' ers can be retained in the organization by managing stress at workplace. Objectives of the Study: The present study is made with the following objectives: •To understand age diversity and gen X and gen Y •To present various characteristic features of gen X and Y •To understand various stress causing factors among young generation •To study the perception of young employee's on stress at workplace •To offer suggestions regarding stress at workplace
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