Relationship Between Perceived Work Stress And Psychological Wellbeing Of Management Employees In A Unit At Maji Mazuri Tea Plantation In Kericho, Kenya

Abstract

This research studied the association between perceived work stress of management workers and psychological wellbeing in a unit at Maji Mazuri Tea Plantation. Perceived work stress has been evidenced in different professions all around the world with psychological wellbeing studies being on the rise. The topic looks into exploring whether perceived work stress has an effect on psychological wellbeing on management workers. This topic is important to counselling psychology because it deals with one of the common problems reported for counselling; work stress. Counselling psychology seeks to enhance the wellbeing of the clients that seek counselling. Adults spend a bit part of their lives at work which has been estimated to be about a third of their lives. The topic helps understand what aspects of the occupational stress index are significant indicators for perceived work stress. By identifying these aspects, a counselling psychologist is better placed to assist the client work on them to achieve wellbeing. The findings also serve as tools that counselling psychologists can use in advising working environments to improve the wellbeing of their employees. This study is filling a gap of exploring the association between perceived work stress with psychological wellbeing for a tea plantation set up in Kenya. There are few to no researches on this topic in Kenya and the tea plantation sector. The research applied a descriptive correlational design and used two standardized test to collect its data. These tests are the standardised occupational stress index (OSI) which was used to score the stress aspect of the study and the other test is the psychological wellbeing (PWB) which provided rating for the wellbeing aspect of the research. The tests were handed as questionnaires to the study participants. Analysis of Pearson’s correlation and regression were done together with other statistical operations using SPSS. The findings of the research revealed experience of moderate levels of perceived work stress as well as moderate levels of psychological wellbeing among the management employees working in a unit at Maji Mazuri tea plantation. The association between perceived work stress and psychological wellbeing was established as weak negatively correlated. Three subscales, powerlessness, low status and profitability, of occupational stress index were found significant in affecting the psychological wellbeing with perceived work stress accounting for 14.4% of psychological wellbeing as per the regression analysis. The findings from this research are helpful in that they create literature for reference for future research on psychological wellbeing and perceived work stress in the tea plantation set-up. The findings help give more reference for validity and reliability of the OSI and PWB tests for ix studying populations in Kenya. The results also help share feedback to Maji Mazuri on what aspects of perceived work stress need improving to improve the psychological wellbeing of management employee