The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Occupational Stress: A Study on BPO Segment-India

Abstract

The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in India has been able to create tremendous employment opportunities and has offered lucrative remuneration packages, but this industry has also been in news for certain contradictory issues. While this industry is able to create tremendous employment opportunities, at the same time it is facing the problem of employee attrition and stress management. In context of research on stress management it has been found that most of the organizations tend to focus on the symptoms of stress. Many stress management programmes have also focused on the theory of stress, its symptoms and its reactions rather than attempting to forestall the reactions of stress by encouraging an awareness of emotional intelligence as a prerequisite to understand the reaction to stress. This exploratory study attempts to find out the relationship between emotional intelligence and occupational stress so as to assist managers in their development and stress management. Participants of the study were 250 employees of one of the leading outsourcing firms located at Gurgaon. Emotional Intelligence has been measured by the scale provided by Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test and Occupational Stress has been measured by using The Occupational Roles Questionnaire from the Occupational Stress Inventory.

Keywords: Business Process Outsourcing, Occupational Stress, Emotional Intelligence

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