Correlating Job Satisfaction with Job Stress and Work-Family Conflict Among Higher Education Teachers

: The higher education teachers are imposed with frequent stressful circumstances that create great levels of stress. These situations have an impact on the interpersonal relations and the work life stability as they affect the psychosomatic conditions and physical health of the teachers. The study intends to inspect the association between the three variables namely: Work stress, Work life conflict and Job Satisfaction with regards to higher education teachers. Xxx higher education teachers working with Savitribai Phule Pune University were considered for the study. The data was collated by using job stress scale (Parker and DeCotiis Organ Behav Hum Perform 32(2):160–177, 1983), the work-family conflict scale (Kopelman et al. Organ Behav Hum Perform 32:198–215, 1983), and the job satisfaction scale (Singh and Sharma 1986). The data was analysed using the Karl Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient. The study revealed that there is a positive correlation with high significance between job stress and work family conflict; negative correlation with high significance between job stress and job satisfaction of higher education teachers; and negative correlation but not significant between job satisfaction and work family conflict among the higher education teachers. The outcomes sustain the job strain model. These findings will help to trace the areas of concern among the higher education teachers, which can be of reference to the therapists and counsellors. The outcomes of the study will help in building a cohesive work environment thereby facilitating work life balance by proposing interventions that will minimize the work family conflict and job stress among the higher education teachers. These interventions will enhance the on-the-job performance thereby benefiting the students and institutes at large.


Introduction:
Teaching is a profession which many choose out of choice rather than by chance or obligation.Since many are in this profession by choice, they enjoy the job they do and so ideally should have high job satisfaction.Since the job one does is of his liking the productivity is good and contribute positively to the workplace.Job satisfaction has been defined and perceived in varied dimensions by research scholars.Few consider it to be the pleasure so doing the task they like, to few it is about the experience one undergoes, few considers the incitement about his profession and the others evaluates the success one achieves in the tasks he/she performs at the workplace.
Job satisfaction is influenced by varied facets relating to personal and professional life.Specifically, for teaching profession the job satisfaction is influenced by reporting structure, superior-subordinate relationship, understanding with the subordinates, teacher-student interaction, and workload to be addressed (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007;Van Houtte, 2006).Job satisfaction has a major influence on the attitude and the performance of an individual (Erdoğan, 1997: Fitzgerald, 1972).Higher level of satisfaction helps to enhance the performance on the job and also in their personal lives.If there is an imbalance between the skills and traits possessed by an individual and the benefits derived from the job, it results in low level of job satisfaction.Job satisfaction impacts the performance and so a dissatisfied teacher will not justify the work and will not satisfy the needs of the student (Bogler, 2001).In the current scenario, education sector is surfacing issues like inadequate compensation, workplace co-ordination, issues with the management and many more.These issues are impacting the performance and thereby the satisfaction level of the teachers in a negative way thereby creating further hindrances in personal growth and work life balance.The review of existing literature revels that the relationship amongst job satisfaction, job stress and work family conflict has been studied by researchers in western context.Moreover, the studied in Asian context are extinct.The employment practices and the job role of the higher education teachers has been transforming considering the changes at University level.The role of teachers has been more demanding both in respect to schedule and efforts.The increasing expectations, responsibility and reinforcement of a work load of 50-60 hours every week, has been adopted as a standard by majority institutions.The studies with regards to work-family conflict revealed that these issues are more prevalent in the setting where there are inordinate hours of work, the responsibilities are more, expectations are high, participation in job is more and the job is more independent.These issues result in situation where work family conflict are at rise.It goes on escalating with the increase in incompatibility between the work expectations and family expectations.To manage the responsibility of personal and family life, it is advisable to have compact working week and compact working hours to handle the job responsibilities.Even flexible working hours can help in minimizing work family conflict.Workplace philosophy, policies and practices, friendly practices, nature of work have an influence on work family conflict of an employee.Job satisfaction will be high when the policies adopted by the organizations are friendly and it also helps in improving the dedication towards the organization.Moreover, organizational policies like flexi-time, dependent care taking, compact work hours impact the turnover plans and dedication of an employee.Poelmans confirmed the relationship between work family conflicts and stress and mental wellbeing.Job satisfaction influences an individual decision of continuing with the organization and the overall wellbeing of an employee.The studies have revealed that job satisfaction will be high when the employee is self-assured that the organization is encouraging and is accommodating in handling the problems of work and family.

Review of Literature:
Job Stress: Steve (2011) have defined Job Stress as, "a response of an employee when the knowledge levels do not correspond with the challenges, oppressions and the professional aspects to be dealt with at the workplace and further poses difficulty and risk to the competencies, consequently creating a struggle to continue with the employment".Therefore, the moment environmental circumstances impend to outdo the competencies and possessions of an employee, job stress arises.Acute work-related stress is generated due to few of the unusual aspects laid under the law enforced jobs.Apprehension with the outcomes of job stress on a one's productivity, nonattendance, and health-related issues have amplified radically in the last decade.The education industry is a significant segment of society which is responsible for the upliftment of the country.Stress is caused when a person doubts his or her abilities to deal with the dangers to their comfort as well as the capability to achieve the demands precisely that are expected from him (Lazarus, 1966).Workplace stress is caused due to the struggle between an individual's demands of job and extent of control he/she can apply to achieve the demands posed.Workplace stress is exorbitant and escalates if not addressed in time.Reasons that lead to stress are many and requires a blend of all factors namely physical, social and psychological.The impact of stress varies from one individual to another.It has a major influence on the happiness and the physical and mental wellbeing of an individual (Blaug, Kenyon, & Lekhi, 2007).Stress has been surfaced as a reason for various issues with have made direct or an indirect impact, as stress is not just related to job or which can be disregarded or is at most important for career advancement.
If the environment at the workplace is not cohesive, it affects the employee both psychologically and physically.Few Organisations tend to ignore this aspect since it is an evidence of weakness and is considered to be negative.Top official who are in a n position to manage stress tend to ignore it (Melanie Bickford, 2005).The various aspects that lead to stress among the higher education teachers are mainly the interpersonal relations

Work-Family Conflict:
The two important facets of a person's life are his family and the employment.As stated by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), "the major cause of work-family conflict is when there is incompatibility between the requirements of job and personal life.This leads to ignorance in the family life since more time and attention is devoted to work related issues".As a consequence, as highlighted by Brough and Pears (2004) and Netemeyer et al. (1996) the aspect of work family conflict has s bidirectional impact with the personal life being affected by job specific problems and work life being affected by home domain issues.Many instances are surfaced where time-based contradictions occur since more time is dedicated to a specific job thereby creating issues in addressing the duties of the other role.When the behaviour expected is unstable with varying expectations from the personal and professional roles, behaviour related conflicts surface.When the pressures of either personal or professional life affects one another, stress-based conflicts arise (Brough and Pears 2004).The one the job performance of teachers is impacts and is impacted by his personal life.Changing requirements of the job, criteria fulfilment pressures, research and academic stress lead to issues in personal life impacting the relationships with kids which thereby impacts the on-the-job performance and restrains one's professional desires (Aminah 2008).This submission can be more simplified by referring to the role theory which proposes that a person has varied roles to be fulfilled and while pursuing these roles to be accomplished the efforts to be deployed by him related to his or her job profile, inter role conflict is a predicted outcome (Kahn et al. 1964).Worklife conflict also arise because of the excess dedication towards the job which is due to his inclination towards the work he performs which keeps him occupied with the professional tasks thereby impacting the personal life.The higher education teachers associated with education sector should focus on work life conflict since they are involved in creating the wealth of knowledge for all strata of the society.Imbalance in the personal and professional life will have an adverse impact on all the sectors of society (Greenhaus, Collins, & Shaw, 2003).As highlighted by Veenhoven, (1991) the work life balance helps an employee to stay contented and With a desire to accomplish more, an individual tends to stay on the job for longer hours and take more efforts which eventually affects his personal life.This led to more stress and lowers the satisfaction level of an employee (Beehr &. Newman, 1978).Hence it is of utmost importance that the work life conflict can be minimised to the extent possible.Work family conflict arises mainly due to the prolonged working hours, excess hours of work required, employee-friendly atmosphere, organizational structure, wage structure, management approach, subordinate relationship, advancement opportunities, family expectations, wellbeing, age-group, incomegroup, on the job performance (Frone & Cooper, 1992; 726).Moreover, demographic location also affects the work family conflict of the employees.

Job Satisfaction:
As explained by Cranny et al.Job satisfaction is the emotional condition of an employee with respect to his work, about the expectations of the employer and his performance on the job.The feelings that a person experiences which defines his attitude for the work, which is a result of beneficial or negative emotions that he has undergone at workplace is Job satisfaction.If there are more of negative experiences as compared to positive ones that the job satisfaction of an employee will be low.Job satisfaction has a great significance in understanding the psychological and physical state of an employee.The characteristics which help in achieving the feeling of Job satisfaction are requirements of the job, policies and practices followed at the workplace, compensation structure, communication style, reporting structure, chances of advancement, job clarity and security, feedback and subordinates (Spector 1997).A person's job satisfaction can be evaluated by considering components like the benefits he receives, opportunities for promotion, organizational policies, reporting structure, work life balance and characteristics of the job.If an employee experience maximum positive features, he will be highly satisfied with his workplace.This variable has a unique importance as it helps in achieving organizational effectiveness.Job satisfaction is many times misconstrued as motivation, but are two distinct variables.Job satisfaction may be positive or negative (Abdul, Ismail, & Jaafar, 2010).It can be said that an employee with positive attitude towards work will have higher job satisfaction than the other who has a negative attitude.

Research Methodology Aim:
To study job stress, work-family conflict, and job satisfaction among higher education teachers.

Objective of the Study:
To examine the relationship between job stress, work-family conflict, and job satisfaction among higher education teachers.

Hypotheses:
Ha1: Job stress of higher education teachers is significantly and positively related to their work-family conflict.Ha2: Job stress of higher education teachers is significantly and negatively related to their job satisfaction.Ha3: Job satisfaction of higher education teachers is significantly and negatively related to their workfamily conflict.

Participants:
Purposive sampling technique was employed to recruit the participants for the study.The minimum age criteria for respondents were 21 years.The participants contacted for data collection were higher education teachers under the Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate professor and Professor level.After conducting a pilot survey of the research instrument, the questionnaires were distributed to the participants.To begin with, we approached six institutes from Pune, India.The teachers were then aware of the goal and importance of the current study.Before distributing the surveys, we got the subjects' informed consent.The surveys were conducted, and the participants were urged to answer honestly.To get the completed questionnaires, we made routine follow up with the institutes.We delivered 160 questionnaires in Pune Goa, India, and ultimately 108 of them were completed.Only 100 of the 108 surveys that were submitted were fully completed.Job Stress Scale: The job stress scale by Parker and DeCotiis (1983) is a 13-item questionnaire was employed to measure job stress.The items are rated on a five-point scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

Work-Family Conflict Scale:
The work-family conflict scale by Kopelman et al. (1983) is an 8-item questionnaire employed to measure the relationship between work-life and personal life.Response to each item is based on a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.Job Satisfaction Scale: The job satisfaction scale by Singh and Sharma (1986) is employed to measure the level of job satisfaction.It is a 30-item questionnaire.Each item is rated on a five-point rating scale.Discussion: Ha1: Job Stress of Higher Education Teachers Is Significantly and Positively Related to Their Work-Family Conflict According to the study's findings, work-family conflict and higher education teachers' job stress are extremely significant and positively associated.One of the most demanding professions, teaching exposes employees to a variety of workplace, organizational, and personal challenges.When teachers are burned out, it affects their interactions with the students, particularly their harshness toward them.Burnout also causes work-family issues.According to Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), work-family conflict arises when the home and work environments are incompatible.As a result, playing family-related responsibilities becomes more and more difficult as one participates in work-related tasks.Family and work-related concerns interact and are hence interdependent (Ford et al. 2007).Work-family conflict rises when workrelated demands rise, and as work-family conflict rises, so does work-related stress (Ford et al. 2007;Frank et al. 2017;Smoktunowicz et al. 2017).Teachers struggle to balance their job and family obligations because of their heavy workloads, tight deadlines, and other obstacles that are only getting worse.This could lead to work-family conflicts.Working for long hours makes it difficult for them to spend quality time with their families and may lead to work-family conflicts.This is further supported by many others, who discovered, pressure levels at work lead to stress and conflict at home, negatively influencing personal satisfaction.Relationship problems may also lead to stress, which may affect how they manage work and life.This stress is likely to affect their home lives as well and could result in work-family conflict.Teachers must therefore balance the many demands of their employment and personal lives in order to maintain a healthy work-life balance.Ha2: Job Stress of Higher Education Teachers Is Significantly and Negatively Related to their Job Satisfaction The outcomes showed a strong, negative correlation between job satisfaction and job stress among Higher Education Teachers.Therefore, job satisfaction would decrease as job stress increases and vice versa.According to Beehr and Newman (1978), workplace stress happens when elements associated to the job interact with the task and influence the employee's ability to perform normally.The amount to which an employee feels driven, pleased, and fulfilled at work, on the other hand, is referred to as job satisfaction.When a person's job is stable, their career is growing, and they have a good work-life balance, they are more likely to feel content with their work.To ensure that teachers perform satisfactorily on the job and are retained, acceptable levels of job satisfaction must be attained and maintained.The results show the correlation between job happiness and their job stress.Calculate the Mean and Standard Deviation Job satisfaction is correlated with job stress.According to Van der Merwe (2008), improved work performance, career advancement, compensation, and non-cash rewards like recognition are all related to higher job satisfaction.Teachers experience stress due to a variety of circumstances, as was previously mentioned.It is discovered that prolonged exposure to occupational stress has an impact on employees' effectiveness at work as well as their psychological and physical wellbeing.Similar to this, as stated by Maslach (2003), if employees are exposed to stress on a regular basis and are unable to manage it, it may have an impact on the caliber of their work, their mental and physical health, and their ability to execute their jobs.According to Keith (1982), depending on the level of stress, stress can either make it harder or easier to do your job.The appropriate amount of stress can improve productivity and motivate workers to take on new tasks, but when stress levels rise above a person's capacity to handle them, performance starts to suffer.The person can be unable to make decisions and make mistakes at work.While investigating crimes, police officers come across brutality, aggression, and disregard for other people's well-being.Along with internal politics and conventional inflexible management techniques, they must simultaneously fulfill the contradictory expectations of the students.These elements could also have an impact on how happy teachers feel with their jobs.Additionally, when teachers endure pressures at work, they feel less curiosity in their work, which lowers their job satisfaction.Critical research findings have shown that ongoing stress has a bad impact on both employees' attitudes on their jobs and their health (Mohren et al. 2003;Ursin and Eriksen 2004).Working in consistently distressing circumstances leads to dissatisfaction and fatigue.Additionally, Rosenthal et al. (2012) discovered that one of the most common causes of stress is job strain, which results from an imbalance between one's level of control over their job and the demands placed on them.As a result, teachers who experience more job stress will also have much less job satisfaction, and vice versa.On the other side, teachers are less likely to experience stress the more satisfied they are with their work.Additionally, they would be more resilient to stress than those who aren't happy in their jobs.Ha3: Job Satisfaction of Higher Education teachers Is Significantly and Negatively Related to Their Work-Family Conflict The study also found a negative correlation between work-family conflict and job satisfaction.People with jobs have social status and, in addition to whatever other identities they may have, a distinct identity.The degree to which people perceive their professions as posing a danger to other important tasks they perform determines how satisfied or unsatisfied they are with them (Carlson and Kacmar 2000;Grandey et al. 2005).According to Mead (1934), there must be a seamless transition between functionalistic roles that are tied to work and responsibility and social action roles that are associated to leisure in order to achieve and maintain higher levels of psychological stability.People negatively evaluate their work when they interfere with the performance of family-related duties (Carlson and Kacmar 2000), which lowers job satisfaction.Teaching profession is demanding, which interferes with the fulfilment of family responsibilities and may lead to work-family conflict, which may negatively impact job performance and job satisfaction.When teachers are happy with their jobs, when their attitudes toward their jobs are positive, when they are satisfied with their pay, and when they have less work to do, all of these factors can contribute to higher job satisfaction and, as a result, lower levels of work-family conflict.A decrease in job satisfaction may also result in an increase in family issues, drug and alcohol addiction, and poor work performance because jobs play a significant part in people's life.When it comes to teachers, having to put in extra work load, working on holidays and other significant holidays, and constantly being allocated new courses, among other things, could result in a lack of time with family, which could cause conflict and, ultimately, frustration, which would lower their job satisfaction.Additionally, stress from family responsibilities has the potential to negatively impact individuals' job performance and, as a result, their job happiness.The conclusion is supported by Kahn et al. (1964), who discovered that job satisfaction is predicted to decline when there is a high amount of conflict between home life and work.Grandey et al. (2005) discovered in their research that job satisfaction was considerably impacted by work's interference with family life.In a similar vein, Rathi and Barath (2013) noted that work-family conflict had a detrimental effect on job satisfaction.As a result, work-family conflict has a detrimental impact on job satisfaction.

Limitations of the Study:
The study like many other research studies has few limitations.First, the sample size of the study was lesser (n = 100) and therefore, the generalization of the outcomes is restricted.Secondly, the respondents of the study involved more male participants than female, so the results are less applicable to female teachers.Thirdly, the stress cannot be every time a result of professional life, for some respondents it may be due to situations in personal life or the experiences of the instances occurred in the past.Hence, there are few shortcomings of correlating job stress with job-satisfaction.Last of all, the hierarchy and experience of the higher education teachers is not taken into consideration since getting equal number of respondents from all the positions in the organization was not feasible.This may have an impact on the findings of the study as experienced and older teachers have high salaries and other benefits as well compared to the newer employees.Also the work pressure and less reinforcements is more among the newly joined employess.

Suggestions for Future Research:
The framework developed in the research necessities to be verified in further more service industries such as call-centers, defense services, banks and financial institutes, police official services, and hospital and nursing, which may add newer dimension on this area of research.Additional research is required to explore a longitudinal model to quantify or measure work stress in different situations at various levels by higher education teachers and survey the effects that impact the level of job satisfaction experienced by the teachers and work-family conflict among higher education teachers in India.Further research could also explore more strategies that may help to cope and deal with job stress.Last of all, studying the level of job satisfaction of the peers, spouses, superiors will help in getting an inclusive view of a respondent of the study.

Study Implications:
The study has some practical implications which are discussed and could be summarized here.In the Indian context, very less research has been conducted on the stress and job satisfaction of higher education teachers and so the researchers realized the need for contribution to this field.The contributions to this field of research helps in throwing some light on the prevalence of job stress, work-family conflict, and job satisfaction problems, thus gathering the much needed attention.Studying higher education teachers along with the objectives of the present study provides the researchers better understanding of the extent of stress experienced by higher education teachers, the level of workfamily conflict, and the job satisfaction.The outcomes of the study can be utilized to reach at restorative modules suited to the needs of higher education teachers experiencing high stress and work-life conflict concerns.Based on the outcomes of the research, mental health sensitivity programs can be developed to support higher education teachers who are exposed to a possibility of experiencing stress at work.The study will also benefit important prevailing authorities to evaluate the status of job stress, work-family conflict, and job satisfaction among higher education teachers and understand the higher education teachers in need of mental health care at the early stages and thereby initiate instant beneficial intervention.
, work-load, job responsibilities and specifications, lack of role clarity, work schedule, the conditions at work, relationship with superiors and subordinates, work life balance, disciplinary issues.The research studies highlight the significance of association between job stress and work family conflict (Voydanoff, 2005; Greenhaus, 2003; Frone et al., 1997).The consequences in the form of strain, inconvenience, apprehension and exhaustion restricts the efforts of an employee.Wallace, 1999; Karatepe et al., 2005 examined the relationship between work family conflict and job stress and found a positive correlation between the two.