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Job stress: A systematic literature review

Article in International Journal of Health Sciences · July 2022

DOI: 10.53730/ijhs.v6nS6.10971

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How to Cite:
Rathi, S., & Kumar, P. (2022). Job stress: A systematic literature review. International
Journal of Health Sciences, 6(S6), 6204–6222.
https://doi.org/10.53730/ijhs.v6nS6.10971

Job stress: A systematic literature review

Soni Rathi
Research Scholar, University School of Business, Chandigarh University,
Gharuan, (Punjab)
Email: [email protected]
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2997-8622

Dr. Praveen Kumar

Assistant Professor, University School of Business, Chandigarh University,
Gharuan, (Punjab)
Email: [email protected]
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7503-3531

Abstract

Employees nowadays experience an extreme level of job stress at

workplace. It is considered as the exploration of the variations among
employees’ in the term of stress consequence. The key goal of the
study is to probe or review the previous research papers on job stress
and its several definitions, demographics, methodologies and
industries or research units. Between the years 2000 and 2021, a
total of 68 articles was examined. Several researchers of diverse
nations have mentioned the definitions of job stress in this paper.
These research papers have been classified into five categories like a
year of publication, the background of researchers, nations, research
methodology and type of research or research unit. The finding of the
study depicts the crucial work-related stressors and coping strategies
to keep the stress at bay. This review paper aids to comprehend the
theoretical insight or understanding of job stress as well as the causes
and its outcomes in the organization. This paper is categorized on the
basis of year, researcher’s profile, research methodology and type of
industry. Stress management workshops or webinars must be
conducted which will aid employees’ to be aware of the origin and the
detrimental outcomes of the stress on their well-being. Furthermore, it
will also aid employees’ to know about stress reduction strategies and
how to minimize them efficiently. The limitations and future
recommendations are also highlighted in the current study to render
further direction.

Keywords---job stress, work-related stressors, stress, coping strategies.

International Journal of Health Sciences ISSN 2550-6978 E-ISSN 2550-696X © 2022.

Manuscript submitted: 9 April 2022, Manuscript revised: 27 June 2022, Accepted for publication: 18 July 2022
6204
 6205

Introduction

Hans Seyle had introduced the modern science which was developed from the
term stress due to have both cons (distress) and pros (eustress) of it. He is a
renowned father of the modern stress. An individual experiencing stress is said to
be an individual experiencing a common response to a demand and obstructive
atmosphere as a stake or hazard and limited resources (Selye, 1976). The strain
or suffering that results from challenging conditions is known as stress (Alves,
Chor, Faerstein and Werneck, 2004). According to Hsieh, Huang & Su (2004),
Stress means the workers' inability to adjust to work and, as a result, includes
some natural and psychological reaction. In the words of Kavanagh, (2005), stress
is an unspecific response or a body's reaction to an event or stimulus. “It is our
body’s physical and emotional reaction that frightens, irritate, confuse, endanger, or
excite us and place demands on the body” (Mohajan, 2012). One of the most
frightening hindrance at workplace confronted by employees is stress. Workplace
stress is also named as occupational stress or job stress or work place stress (PVS,
2018). Employees’ can easily lead to the occupational stress, when they are not
able to fulfill job requirements. Nowadays, the main causes of stress at workplace
are poor management in the organizations, inferior work designs, inadequate
leadership and management, miserable working conditions and cutthroat culture
of workplace (Mead, 2000). Hence, it is examined that 68 research publications
published between 2000 and 2020, this study attempts to analyse the idea of
occupational or job stress in varied nations and industries or units. Diverse
definitions of job stress, as well as their influence on the physical and mental
health of personnel from various industries/research units, are covered in this
study.

Various definitions of stress and job stress

From 2000 to 2020 a lot of researchers compile the various definitions of stress
and job stress in order to have a better understanding about the job stress
(mention below in the Table I).

Table I
Definitions of stress and job stress

S.no. Researchers Stress and Job Stress

1. Lazarus (2000) Stress can lead to a reduction of demands (both internal
and external) when it is dealt with as a complex and
multidimensional emotion.
2. Cavanaugh, Boswell, “Work stress is meant by a type of stress associated with
Roehling and Boudreau the workplace that can be occasional or chronic, although
(2000) most cases fall under the second type mentioned”.
3. Krohne (2002) Describes two types of stressors: systematic
stress related to physiological or psycho-biological factors
& psychological stress related to cognitive factors.
4. Leka, Griffiths, and A person may be stressed when
Cox, (2004) their knowledge and understanding of the situation
are insufficient to deal with the disturbance and difficulties
in their environment.
 6206

5. Robbins, Judge and Stress is the result of a dynamic situation where a person
Sanghai (2007) is faced with an opportunity, constraint, or demand that is
contrary to what he/she desires and the outcome is
uncertain and important.

6. Abualrub and Al- Zaru Stress plays a key role, and is positively correlated with
(2008) high turnover and turnover intentions, absenteeism, and
substantial health problems.

7. Cox and Griffiths, Work stress is a decrease in mental and physical health
(2010) can be caused by both short-term (strains) and long-term
(stresses) effects of workplace psychological experiences
and demands.

8. Walsh (2011) A stress is a biological process resulting from an emotion or

thought. In other words, stress is the outcome of demands
made by experiences of tussle.

9. Islam, Mohajan and Work stress occurs when the working conditions do not
Datta (2012). meet the employee's capabilities, resources, or needs, and
causes poor health and even injury.

10. Shahsavarani, Stress is defined as any change in the environment that

Ashayeri, Lotfian and results in disruption of homeostasis (internal balance) of a
Sattari (2013) living being.

11. Goswami (2015) Stress is defined as a situation in which one is confronted

with both an opportunity and a constraint related to what
he or she wants and in which the outcome appears both
ambiguous and crucial at the same time.

12. Seaward (2016) According to the definition of stress, it is any change that
an individual experiences.

13. Kanellakis, Occupational stress occurs when people confront

Karakasidou and challenging work tasks that are beyond their abilities and
Koutsoukis (2018) knowledge, reducing their capacity to perform well.

14. World Health “Work-related stress is the response people may have when
Organization (2020) presented with work demands and pressures that are not
matched to their knowledge and abilities and which
challenge their ability to cope”.

Literature Review

Nelson and Burke (2000) had identified a robust association amidst strain &
excessive work, job anxiety & issues in workplace relations, psychological &
physical situation, interaction & job conviction. Stephens and Long (2000)
represented various elements of interaction which have shown the deviation in
 6207

post-traumatic stress disorder and physical indication with distinctive impacts for
various facets of interaction. When overwhelming stress was analyzed in terms of
indications for subcategory at distinct kinds of interaction, some of them were
discovered such as conventional communication which could be troublesome to
the simplicity of speaking about supportive interactions with work. Lewig and
Dollard (2001) depicted that outbreak expenses due to stress at workplace, is
considered as the result of adverse operational condition. Spector, (2002) various
nations consider occupational stress as a serious physical and psychological
issue. Employees feel tensed, face physical health issues (short term & long term)
and have erratic and illogical attitude towards work due to stressful working
conditions. There is a undeviating relation of excessive work & inflexible
regulations with coping strategies ans issue resolving strategies. Further, strain
and job stressors are also linked with these strategies (Kang and Singh, 2004).

Shah (2003) identified some reasons of high role stressors such as depression,
role disintegration, and recalcitrant. Keegel, Ostry and LaMontagne, (2009)
unearthed some components of job related cognitive antecedents which are highly
linked with job stress namely job requisition, shortage of command on jobs,
interpersonal aid, negative friendly relation and technological issues. Employees
likely to face job stress when they have less control on jobs and less societal
support. Liu and Onwuegbuzie (2012) highlighted the feasible reasoning of intent
to leave jobs such as distress, poor wages, excessive load of work, inadequate
time off and leaves. Arshadi and Damiri (2013) represented that work stress
impacts workplace performance negatively and intent to quit work positively.
Jung (2013) represented that some antecedents of job burnout (exhaustion and
disbelief) are influenced by job stressors (role overburden, role inability, and role
limit) along with intervening impact of mood regulation on the association amid
them. Mood regulation is directly associated with role inability, role limit, and
emotional exhaustion. Whereas, partially associated with inability, role limit, and
disbelief.

Bhui, Dinos, Miecznikowska, de Jongh, and Stansfeld, (2016) unearthed that the
main reasons of job strain are emerged at the workplace due to unfavourable
conditions of work and organizational policies. Stress management techniques are
impractical expectation, deficiency of encouragement, unfavourable treatment,
lack of power, lack of gratitude or enthusiasm, effort-remuneration disequilibrium,
incompatible roles, lack of clarity and lack of interaction (Bhui, Dinos,
Miecznikowska, de Jongh and Stansfeld, 2016). Stress could be prevented and
managed through family interference outside of work. (Halkos and Bousinakis,
2017) There are various reasons of stress faced by employees such as dwindled
remuneration & wages, long working hours, profitable approach, behavioral
modification amid organization & personnel, re-configuring, and dwindled
employment prospect or growth. Vijayan (2018), presented a robust kinship
amidst chosen antecedents namely excessive work, job safety and work schedule.
These chosen antecedents are highly connected and have greater influence on
employees’ performance. Nisar and Rasheed (2019), unearthed that job
contentment, job performance (inter or intra) and work stress ares negatively
linked with each other. Further, job contentment work as an intervening
construct amid them. The main target of this investigation is to focus on the
significance and obstacles related to occupational stress. Sahni (2020) deduced
6208

that there is a direful requirement of moral support, community oriented support

and an efficacious method of executive support to keep up personnels physical
and psychological well-being. Queirós, Passos, Bártolo, Marques, da Silva and
Pereira (2020), discovered a few attributes outlined as societal and occupational
issues, which were linked with tension, anxiousness and fatigueness.

Gaps of the study

Nowadays, the level of job stress is quite high at the workplace experienced by
employees. Nevertheless, the employees of diverse sectors might deal with this
situation differently. Therefore, a comparative analysis of job stress amid workers
of diverse sectors can be conducted (Burman and Goswami, 2018). Job stress is
all about the exploration of the variations among the individuals in the term of
stress consequence and how the positive benefits and strategies to reduce stress
can be merged. Throughout the professional life of a person, training in skills is
represented to surge the stress results positively as well as minimize strain in
order to embrace the educational programs at an early stage. Eventually, this is
imperative and unavoidable to switch the point of views regarding job stress into a
natural concept. The individual response to it is based on positive repercussions.
(Quick, Macik-Frey and Nelson, 2017). In today’s world, the organizations,
workplace culture as well as the reasons of work stress keep on modifying
consistently. Hence, it is crucial to keep an eye on businesses and workplace
cultures to see whether they're producing job stress and other issues like well-
being stakes (Burman and Goswami, 2018). Challenge stressors like task
complexity and buffer variable are crucial for employees’ health and safety. Other
work demands and hindrance stressors should be taken into account for further
study. Diverse results of challenge stressors might be explored to further analyze
the challenge hindrance framework (Dawson, O’brien and Beehr, 2015), (Syrek,
Apostel and Antoni, 2013). To minimize the level of job stress some preventive
strategies need to be undertaken, which influence the policies, practices,
administration and work culture (Guan, Xiaerfuding, Ning, Lian, Jiang, Liu, and
Ng, 2017).

Reforming management practices is helpful in reducing job stress at the

workplace. To investigate the variances amid private, public and service sectors
more research is required. On the other hand, identify diverse job types such as
education and healthcare to analyze either they react on the intervention
techniques in a same manner or differently (Bhui, Dinos, Miecznikowska, Jongh
and Stansfeld 2016). Further investigation of sparse longitudinal study is needed
where the stress level between employees was analyzed along with the workshops,
webinars, training and other coping strategies were being provided in order to
minimize stress level among employees (Burman and Goswami, 2018).
Techniques such as take out time for personal life, sleeping, and relaxing have
been preferred more by the employees in order to minimize the level of stress.
Though, it is also identified via that most of the workforce are not aware of the
significance and strength of distinct strategies to cope with stress. Thus, there is
a lack of systematic training in coping techniques of reducing stress (Burman and
Goswami, 2018). The current study strives to unearth that how many studies
have been investigated on the concept job stress during the period of 2000 to
2021.
 6209

Methodology

Three steps of Tranfield, Denyer and Smart, (2003) have been adopted in the
research. First step, using key terms like stress, job stress, occupational stress,
and work stress, investigators accumulated journals, research papers, and
research articles from Emerald, Scopus, Springer, Research Gate, Science Direct,
Google Scholar, and other official websites. From January 2000 to April 2021,
sixty eight articles have been reviewed so far. The papers connected to job stress
were examined and categorized in the second step, depending on the year of
publication, researcher profiles, research methodology, industry type, research
unit (Reosekar and Pohekar, 2014), (Figure 1). Eventual step, in this step all of
the journal papers were tabulated and classified into four categories: journals,
researchers' profiles, methodology, and industry/research unit type. Following
that, a thorough investigation was carried out to identify gaps, future research
opportunities, implications, findings and conclusions.

Figure 1: Classification of Review

Fig 1. Job stress classification

Analysis and Results

Distribution of job stress papers

In the current investigation, the largest number of studies have been uncovered
in the course of last 20 years. In recent years a lot of importance in both science
and social science have been gained by the research of job stress. Year-wise
distribution of articles from 2000 to 2021 is represented below:
6210

Table II
Year Wise Number of Articles

Year No. of articles

2000-2005 16
2006-2011 19
2012-2017 23
2018 onwards 10

According to Table II, 16 articles on job stress or work stress were studied from
2000 to 2005, followed by 19 articles were studied from 2005-2011. From 2012 to
2017, 23 articles were investigated by researchers or analysts. Further, from 2018
till 2021 only 10 articles were studied. Therefore, the highest number of studies
on job stress conducted during the year 2012 till 2017.

Table III
Nation-wise Distribution

Nation of publication Percentage %

USA 18%
India 11%
UK 8%
Others 63%

In various nations a lot of researches related to job stress are being conducted
and via this study it is identified that around 28 nations have studied the impact
of job stress (Table III). Among 68 articles, 52 articles have several authors, while
16 have only one. The United States of America has the most papers, followed by
India and the United Kingdom. Moreover, out of 68 papers, fifty-five articles are
represented by academicians, ten articles are represented by professionals and
residue three articles are represented by both academicians and professionals
together.

Table IV
Researcher’s Professional Background

Professional background Percentage %

Academic 81%
Professional 4%
Both 15%

In 2014, Reosekar and Pohekar introduced research technique in 2014, and the
journals were classified accordingly in this review report (Fig 1). There are 68 papers in
all, with 52 quantitative papers, 8 qualitative papers, and the residue being review
papers. Furthermore, 47 out of the 52 quantitative studies are empirical articles. It
signifies that almost all investigations are based on empirical investigations followed by
cross-sectional investigations. Empirical investigation means experiments, survey or
 6211

observations and the info gathered or derived from real-life experience instead of
theory or faith. On the contrary, cross-sectional investigation is described as an
investigation in which data is accumulated from a respondent subset at a certain point
in time. Hence, only 8 qualitative articles are available, among them 1 is descriptive, 3
are conceptual and residue are exploratory. Furthermore, Table IV has shown that
81% of researchers are academic and 4% of researchers are professional. Whereas,
15% of researchers are both academic as well as professional.

Figure 2: A Formal Tree of Research Methodology

Fig 2. A formal tree of job stress (Qualitative and Quantative research)

Table V
Classification of Job Stress

S.no Years Researchers Researcher’s Nations Methodology Type of

profile industry/
Research
unit
1. 2000 Stephens and Long Academic New Zealand Empirical Police officers
2. 2000 He, Li, Shi, Mao, Mu Academic China Empirical University
and Zhou faculty
3. 2000 Nelson and Burke Academic USA Descriptive Executive
women
4. 2001 Tang, Au, Schwarzer Academic USA Empirical Chinese
and Schmitz teachers
5. 2001 Takkouche, Regueira Academic UK Empirical Faculty and
and Gestal-Otero staff
6. 2001 Lewig and Dollard Academic Australia Descriptive Australian
newsprint
media
7. 2002 Spector Academic USA Descriptive -
8. 2002 Jain, Mishra and Academic India Exploratory Doctors &
Kothari engineers
9. 2002 Bun Academic Hong kong Empirical Life Insurance
agents
 6212

10. 2003 Shah Academic India Empirical Bank

employees
11. 2004 De Croon, Sluiter, Both UK longitudinal truck drivers
Blonk, Broersen and study
Dresen
12. 2004 Kang and Singh Academic India Empirical Electronic
industry
13. 2004 Dziegielewski, Turnage Academic USA Empirical University
and Roest-Marti students
14. 2005 Schneiderman, Academic USA - -
Ironson and Siege
15. 2005 Suraj Narayan Academic South Africa Descriptive Women
managers
16. 2005 Kobayashi, Hirose, Both Japan Cross Japanese part
Tada, Tsutsumi and sectional time female
Kawakami study employees
17. 2006 Wieclaw, Agerbo, Academic Denmark Empirical Human
Mortensen and Bonde service
employees
18. 2006 Bridger, Kilminster Professional UK Cross- Personnel in
and Slaven sectional the Royal
survey Navy & Royal
Marines
19. 2006 Adriaenssens, De Professional Belgium Conceptual Academic
Prins and Vloeberghs staff

20. 2006 Guimont, Brisson, Academic Canada Empirical white-collar

Dagenais, Milot, workers
Vézina, Mâsse and
Blanchette
21. 2006 Morash, Haarr, and Academic USA Empirical Police officers
Kwak
22. 2007 Clays, Academic Belgium Longitudinal Public
Bacquer, Leynen,Korni administratio
tzer, Kittel and Backer n
23. 2007 Zeytinoglu, Denton Academic Canada Empirical Nurses( privat
and Davies e hospital)
24. 2008 Chandola, Britton, Academic UK Empirical Civil Service
Brunner, Hemingway, employees
Malik, Kumari and
Marmot
25. 2008 Kinman Academic UK Cross Academic
Sectional staff
26. 2008 Sen Academic India Empirical Teachers &
Mana gers
27. 2009 Keegel, Ostry and Academic Australia; Empirical Australia
LaMontagne Canada workers

28. 2009 Zakerian, and Academic Malaysia Empirical University

Subramaniam office
workers
29. 2009 Noblet, Rodwell and Academic Australia Empirical Police officers
Allisey
 6213

30. 2010 Higgins, Duxbury and Academic UK Empirical Dual earner

Lyons families
31. 2010 Chandra and Sharma Academic India Exploratory Managers

32. 2010 McLinton and Dollard Professional Australia Empirical Japanese

workers
33. 2011 Malik Academic Pakistan Empirical private and
public banks
employees
34. 2011 Andel, Crowe, Hahn, Academic Sweden Twin study members of
Mortimer, Pedersen, (population the Swedish
Fratiglioni and Gatz based study) Twin Registry
35. 2011 Hurtado, Sabbath, Both USA Cross- American &
Ertel, Buxton and sectional im- migrant
Berkman study long-term
care workers
36. 2012 Mäntyniemi, Oksanen, Both Finland Cohort study Public sector
Salo, Virtanen, employees
Sjösten, Pentti and
Vahtera
37. 2012 Mohajan Academic Bangladesh - -
38. 2012 Johnson Academic USA Longitudinal Police officers
39. 2012 Huss Academic Israel Conceptual Social
workers
40. 2013 Eriksson, van den Both Sweden Population- -
Donk, Hilding and based cohort
Ostenson study
41. 2013 Syrek, Apostel and Academic Germany Cross Employees
Antoni sectional
study
42. 2013 Sembajwe, Tveito, Academic America Cross workers from
Kenwood, O’Day, sectional hospitals
Dennerlein, Hashimoto study
and Sorensen
43. 2013 Jung Academic South Korea Cross- employees
sectional working as
study information
technology
professionals
44. 2013 Arshadi and Damiri Academic Iran Empirical employees of
Iranian
National
Drilling
Company
(INDC)
45. 2014 Sonnentag and Fritz Academic Germany and - -
USA
46. 2014 Avdija Academic USA Empirical Law
enforcement
officers
47. 2014 Liu and Onwuegbuzie Both China; USA Conceptual Teachers
48. 2015 Landsbergis, Diez- Both USA multi-center Multi-Ethnic
Roux, Fujishiro, cohort study Study of
Baron, Kaufman, Atherosclerosi
Meyer, Koutsouras, s (MESA)
 6214

Shimbo, Shrager, participants

Stukovsky and Szklo
49. 2015 Trousselard, Dutheil, Both France, Cross- Nurses of
Naughton, Cosserant, Australia sectional acute care
Amadon, Dualé and study units
Schoeffler
50. 2015 Acquadro Maran, Academic Italy Empirical Police officers
Varetto, Zedda and
Ieraci
51. 2016 Bhui, Dinos, Galant- Academic London Qualitative Public &
Miecznikowska, de study private sector
Jongh and Stansfeld employees
and non-
governmental
organisations
52. 2016 Wiegel, Sattler, Göritz Academic Germany Empirical University
and Diewald faculty
53. 2016 Gharibi, Mokarami, Both Iran Cross Iranian
Taban, Aval, Samimi Sectional workers
and Salesi
54. 2016 Marcatto, Colautti, Academic Italy Empirical Public
Filon, Luis, Di Blas, workers
Cavallero and Ferrante
55. 2016 Nowro-uzi, Nguyen, Academic Canada - -
Casole and Nowrouzi-
Kia
56. 2017 Suraksha and Academic India Empirical Public and
Chhikara private bank
employees
57. 2017 Guan, Xiaerfuding, Academic China cross- civil servants
Ning, Lian, Jiang, Liu sectional
and Ng study
58. 2017 Halkos and Bousinaki Academic Greece Empirical Public &
private sector
59. 2018 Kanellakis, Academic Greece Qualitative Health-care
Karakasidou, and study and medical
Koutsoukis (Descriptive) employees
60. 2018 Jones and Koehoorn Academic Canada Descriptive Employees
study
61. 2018 Vijayan Academic India Empirical Employees
62. 2018 PVS Academic Sri Lanka - -
63. 2019 Omair, Ullah, Academic Pakistan, - Workers
Ganguly, Noor, India, Korea
Maqsood and Sarkar
64. 2019 Shoukat, Ahmad and Academic Pakistan cross- private and
Ahmed sectional public
study primary
school
teachers
65. 2019 Nisar and Rasheed Academic Pakistan cross‐sectiona police
l study employees
66. 2020 Wolniak and Szromek Academic Europe - Doctors,
professors
67. 2020 Sahni Academic Saudi Arabia Exploratory Middle-level
managers in
 6215

public and
private
service
industry
68. 2020 Queirós, Passos, Both Portugal - Police officers
Bártolo, Marques, da
Silva and Pereira

Findings

It is mentioned in this study that there are some of the major work-related or job
stressors which impact the job or workplace such as role overload, role conflict,
role ambiguity, unreasonable groups and political pressure, work hours & long
shifts, poor physical environment, unpleasant working condition, task demands,
jobs insecurity, unsound organizational policies and practices, interpersonal
demands, powerlessness, job performance (dissatisfaction & poor performance),
poor peer relations, non-work stressors (marital and family demands, child-
rearing duties, and parental attention). Furthermore, employees’ confront so
many crisis or issues in their personal life and professional life along with that
their physical and mental health is also influenced due to these issues. The
outcomes of the stress confront by employees’ at the workplace are as follow
behavioral outcomes, physical outcomes, emotional outcomes, cognitive outcomes,
functional outcomes and dysfunctional outcomes. Coping means after recognizing
a stressful encounter, the individual adopts cognitive and behavioral responses to
deal with that encounter or with its consequences, in some way (Malik, 2011). In
order to cope with the stress some stress reduction strategies are presented in
this study.

Figure 3: Work-related Stressors

Fig 3. Work-related stressors

6216

Figure 4: Outcomes of Job Stress

Fig 4: Job stress outcomes

Stress Reduction Strategies

According to Compas, Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen and Wadsworth (2001) Coping

strategies are depicted as deliberate and conscious feedback to stress. The stress
reduction strategies for reducing or keeping the stress at bay are given below:

 Mindfulness methods (yoga or meditation) aid in well-being benefits like

normal hypertension, treat heart disease, minimize prolonged pain, reform
sleeping routines, build up knowledge to pay heed and surge attentiveness.
 The national health service has introduced a shock therapy device that deal
with depression, stress and anxiety.
 Provide employees vacations, recreational activities, sports after particular
time intervals in order to avoid the sense of being secluded, stress,
sleeplessness etc.
 Revamp the workplace and the salary package.
 Provide stress management counselling techniques to throw a light on the
personal and psychological issues.
 Create congruous work schedules along with demands and duties.
 Avoid tedious & dull job by establishing job rotation.
 Provide a concise job specification, promotion policy and proper
communication channel.
 Must organize frequent stress management workshops and offer
psychological and spiritual aid as well as assistance with duties and other
responsibilities.
 Provide reformed and enhanced training methods.
 6217

 Focus on analyzing performance to discover the pros and cons of the

employees and provide them appropriate coaching (Burman and Goswami,
2018).
 Emotional regulation (the emotional consequences or outcomes), approach
behaviors (issues resolved immediately), reappraisal (modifying the
definition of the outcome), and avoidance behaviors (Stanisławski, 2019).
 Set boundaries appropriately, to avoid dreadful situations work early,
decline requests, aerobic exercise, optimistic behavior or attitude,
tranquility, catnap & take rest well, play (indoor/outdoor) games, listening
to music and etc (Aye, Akaneme, Achemu, Eseadi and Mbaji, 2016 ).
 Positive attitude, accepting unmanageable events, be assertive rather than
aggressive, instead of being furious assert emotions, feelings, perceptions or
beliefs (Kaplan, Liu and Kaplan, 2005).
 Be healthy, eat healthy, learn to manage time effectively, appropriate
boundaries, decline requests, take out time for leisure activities, interests &
tranquility and take rest and sleep well (Guterman and Lee, 2005).
 Promote open communication channel to keep stress related to job at bay,
To eradicate ambiguous role, there is a need of clarification of role, provide
employees rewards because of their hard and smart work, give advice and
instruction on job-related obstacles and workers issues and minimize the
excessive working hours (Malik, 2011).

Implications and Limitations

Through a systematic literature review, the major concern of the study is on the
notion and fundamental comprehension of job stress. In last 20 years the
research on job stress in diverse nations and sectors was conducted significantly
and this research represents the meticulous understanding of job stress. It is
represented via this study that in order to create a stress free atmosphere, diverse
job stressors and coping stress strategies are being utilized by a few sectors.
However, various job stressors and coping strategies have been discovered in the
current review paper. According to this study workshops or webinars must be
conducted which will aid employees’ to aware about the origin and the
detrimental outcomes of the stress on the well- being. Furthermore, it will also aid
employees’ to know about stress reduction strategies and how to minimize it
efficiently. This is deduced via this study that all the research papers are
accumulated from Elsevier, Science Direct, Scopus, Emerald, JSTOR, Taylor and
Francis and Google Scholar. However, it is quite possible most of the research
papers might have been missed out because of inaccessibility of the journals. The
other sources like working papers, ebooks, conference proceedings and thesis are
not considered in this study.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, according to this study there are more studies of empirical in

nature as compared to other studies. Further, most of the research papers are
published by the academicians. On the basis of nation wise distribution, United
state of America had published plethora number of papers followed by United
kingdom and India. Job stress is one of the most severe facet which impacts the
employees not only physically & mentally as well as it impacts the personal life
6218

and professional life of them. India has also highlighted the job stress and the
issues related to it in the research papers, however a few of the researchers have
mentioned how to deal with them. Plethora of investigations have been conducted
on job stress but it is observed that coping strategies of job stress may aid the
organizations and employees to plummet it. Current review does not only heed on
the causes and outcomes of job stress. Moreover, this paper also strives to
mention the coping strategies to minimize the stress level or keeping the stress at
bay at the workplace. For further analysis, empirical study needs to be conducted
on causes, outcomes and coping strategies of job stress and identifying the
antecedents impacting job stress in any sector to render possible results.

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