Relationship Between Teleworking and Work Stress Among Nonteaching Employees in Public Universities: a Case of the University of Nairobi and South Eastern Kenya University

Abstract

Teleworking is an alternative work arrangement, where information and communication technologies enable employees to work outside the traditional working space. Work related stress can therefore spill over to the virtual offices from the traditional offices. This study aimed at finding out if there was a relationship between Teleworking and Work Stress among nonteaching employees in the public universities. University of Nairobi and South Eastern Kenyan University were picked to represent all other public universities. The study was important to the management of the universities, HR Policy makers and also researchers. The theories guiding the research included: Organizational adaptation theory and the transactional theory of stress. Descriptive research design was used and the target population was the all non-teaching employees in the two universities. A sample size of 357 was obtained from the target population of 3289 and questionnaires were administered. MS-Excel was used in analyzing the data. The presentation was through charts, graphs and tables and Regression model was used to establish the relationship between the teleworking and work stress. The achieved response rate was 71.43% and the demographic analysis was done. The results revealed that Public universities were using teleworking as an alternative way of organization work with Zoom being the most used form although there seemed to be some departments which teleworking was a challenge due to nature of work. Teleworking came with its own challenges among them being internet connectivity issues and power outages. Teleworking came with advantages and disadvantages. The study conclusion was that there was a relationship between teleworking and the work stress among the non-teaching employees in the public universities. Some variables had positive relationship while others had negative relation. However, the results of the research revealed a statistically insignificant model. Limitations of the study included lack of trust from the respondents, time, funding and the fact that the research findings could not be generalized. The researcher suggested that similar studies on teleworking and work stress to be carried out targeting other sectors to see if the same results would be achieved.