Abstract:

Objectives: The life style of employees in various organizations i.e., government or private has become stressful in the present scenario. The private organizations are doing hard work to survive and sustain in the extremely competitive business environment. The government organizations are also no more silent spectators, because the heads   of departments of various government organizations are creating a new work culture which helps the employees to perform better in their present jobs. The employees of Government organizations are not getting leisure time as they have to compete with the private organizations.  Because of tremendous job pressure, the people are suffering from various physiological and psychological diseases like high blood pressure, headaches and backaches, heart ailments, anxiety and depression etc. the life of ease, relaxation and recreation is becoming obsolete day by day for the employees. The people (both technical and non-technical) of water resources department, Government of Odisha are doing a variety of jobs in the head office in Bhubaneswar and other areas of the state. The objective of this paper is to find out the stressors /reasons of physiological stress of the employees of water resource department.   The secondary objective is to highlight on high blood pressure as one of the most critical symptoms of stress and to what extent it exists among the employees of water resource department. 

Design/Methodology/Approach:  The present paper is based on primary data collected from the employees of water resource department through questionnaire and personal interview.  The secondary data was also collected from various books, journals and internet regarding the topic.

Findings: High blood pressure exists among the employees irrespective of age and sex. That means high blood pressure as a symptom of stress can affect people of any age i.e., young, middle age and old. High blood pressure can also affect people of any sex i.e., male or female.

Practical Implication: this paper will be immensely helpful to the employees of government departments in general and water resources department in particular to investigate the physiological causes of stress and formulate the strategies to cope with the stress.

Originality/Value: the paper contains the empirical data about the physiological symptoms of stress taking two important variables such as age and sex which will contribute for behavioral research related to stress.  

Key Words: Stress, Stressors, work culture,   competitive environment, coping strategies.