Early stage career planning and Stress Management

A STUDY ON
EARLY STAGE CAREER AND STRESS MANAGEMENT
Submitted By:
Students ID Students Name Batch Signature
3-13-25-076 Milton Kumar Guria 25th
Date of Submission: August 07, 2016
Submitted to:
Professor Ali Ahsan
Department of Management
Faculty of Business Studies
University of Dhaka

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report on Early Stage Career and Stress Management is mainly based on some facts linked
Exploration and Establishment stages of career with stress. Choosing perfect career after having
graduation is really tough. Job seekers attitude towards jobs and organizations is very complex.
Not all good things come in a synchronize way. So, fresh graduates and the early stage job seekers
always have some confusion, dilemma those leads to stress in personal life. People who starts
career from novice he/she faces so many challenges is an organization and in daily life to cope
with the new environment, colleagues and some other internal and external factors. This report
focuses on how to manage stress effectively and efficiently to cope with the external and internal
environment as well as to improve career opportunity through hardworking and proper training in
a right way.

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INTRODUCTION
Early Stage Career consists of Exploration and Establishment stages of long path career. Many
of the critical choices individuals make about their careers are made prior to entering the
workforce on a paid basis. Very early in our lives, our parents and teachers begin to narrow our
alternatives and lead us in certain directions. The careers of our parents, their aspirations for their
children and their financial sources are crucial factors in determining our perception of what
careers are open to us.
The establishment period begins with the search for work and includes our First job, being
accepted by our peers, learning the job and gaining the first tangible evidence of success or
failure in the real world. It is a time which begins with uncertainties, anxieties and risks. It is also
marked by making mistakes and learning from these mistakes and the gradual assumption of
increased responsibilities. However, the individual in this stage has yet to reach his peak
productivity and rarely gets the job that carries great power or high status.
Stress is the body’s General response to any intense physical, emotional or mental demand
placed on it by oneself or others. Anything can be stressor if it last long enough is perceived as
stress. Stress is any situation that evokes negative thoughts and feelings in a person. Stress
management encompasses techniques to equip a person with effective coping mechanisms for
dealing with physiological stress. Stress management involves techniques include self-
management, conflict resolution, positive attitude, self-talk, breathing, meditation, exercise, diet
and rest. Effective stress management involves learning to set limits for the issues that create
stress.
Problem Background
This study is related with stress that a cash officer faces during his/her responsibility mainly in
his preliminary level of career as a cash officer where handling in hard cash is really risky.
Handling of cash and serving the customers is not an easy task and the task sometimes become
more stressful to the novice or junior level cash officers because they are mostly new graduate

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and having no experience in handling such kinds of jobs. More over as they are young and
novice they have to face difficulties to cope with the environment and colleagues in a new and
challenging career. They youngsters have to proficient in handling the stress in proper way. So
for them the problem is sometimes become very severe. The study is about the stress of junior
level cash officers and how they handle such kind of stress or if they cannot cope with the stress
then how they try to find out the alternative way like switch over the job.
Definition of Career
Career is a sequence of attitudes and behaviors associated with the series of job and work related
activities over a person’s lifetime. Yet in another way, it may be defined as a succession of
related jobs, arranged in hierarchical order, through which a person moves in an organization.
Therefore, career is often defined separately as external career and internal career. External
career refers to the objective categories used by society and organizations to describe the
progression of steps through a given occupation, while internal career refers to the set of steps
or stages which make up the individual’s own concept of career progression within an
occupation. For such two different approaches, in organizational context, career can be identified
as an integrated pace of vertical lateral movement in an occupation of an individual over his
employment span.
Important Elements of Career
Analyzing definitional context, it is clear that career has following important elements-
1. It is a proper sequence of job-related activities. Such job related activities vis-a-vis experience
include role experiences at diff hierarchical levels of an individual, which lead to an increasing
level of responsibilities, status, power, achievements and rewards.
2. It may be individual-centered or organizational–centered, individual-centered career is an
individually perceived sequence of career progression within an occupation.
3. It is better defined as an integrated pace of internal movement in an occupation of an
individual over his employment span.

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Different sectors of a banking career
1. IT Specialist
2. Cash Management
3. General Banking
4. Foreign Exchange
5. Green Banking
6. Human Resource Management
7. Finance and Accounting
OVERVIEW
Career planning generally involves getting to know who you are, what you want, and how to get
there. Keep in mind that career planning is a continuous process that allows you to move from
one stage to another stage as your life changes. You may even find yourself going back to look
at who you are again after exploring how to get there. Learning to negotiate the career planning
process now is essential, considering most people will change careers several times in a lifetime.
If a career plan is to be effective, it must begin with an objective. When asked about career
objectives, most managers will probably answer by saying that they want to be successful. What
is success? Definition of success depends on personal aspirations, values, self-image, age,
background and other different factors. Success is personally defined concept. In order to plan
your career, you need to have an idea of what constitutes career success.

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Career management is a process by which individuals can guide, direct and influence the
course of their careers.
In the course of our career we move from one stage to another setting and implementing
appropriate goals at each stage. Our goals differ from getting established on job at early career
stage to career reappraisal, moving away from technical areas & becoming more of a generalist.
Movement form one career stage to another will require individuals to update self & to
appropriate change goals. When required danger exist that individuals may too long stay in a job
they don’t like or miss career opportunity.
CAREER PLANNING IN AN ORGANIZATION
Career planning is the process by which one selects career goals and the path to these goals. The
major focus of career planning is on assisting the employees achieve a better match between
personal goals and the opportunities that are realistically available in the organization. Career
programmers should not concentrate only on career growth opportunities. Practically speaking,
there may not be enough high level positions to make upward mobility a reality for a large
number of employees. Hence, career-planning efforts need to pin-point and highlight those areas
that offer psychological success instead of vertical growth.
Career planning is not an event or end in itself, but a continuous process of developing human
resources for achieving optimum results. It must, however, be noted that individual and
organizational careers are not separate and distinct. A person who is not able to translate his
career plan into action within the organization may probably quit the job, if he has a choice.
Organizations, therefore, should help employees in career planning so that both can satisfy each
other’s needs.
Early career: establishing long-term career goals
The early career stage can have two different looks.
First, it can be the time when employees have their first few jobs and are learning the skills that
make them great employees. Examples might be working with occupational schedules, dress
codes and company policies and procedures.

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It can also be their very first jobs in what they consider their chosen professions.
During the early career phase, as an employee you should:
 Discuss with your manager the traditional career path for the profession. It's very difficult
to set career goals when you don't know all of the options.
 Find out what skills and experience you need for future promotional opportunities. And
how you would go about getting those skills.
 Be prepared to share your long-term career goals and commitment to achieving those
goals. Don’t assume that the organization automatically knows the plan.
Mid-career: dedication to your profession
During the mid-career stage, employees are considered generalists or specialists in their chosen
fields. They manage programs, processes or people. And they can hold formal titles within the
organization, such as manager, director, etc.
During this stage of your career you should consider these activities:
 Re-evaluate and confirm your career goals. Sometimes the goals you had early in your
career are not the same goals you have later in your career.
 Talk with management about multi-directional career paths. You can gain valuable
experience by considering a lateral move or even a downgrade (no, it’s not always a bad
thing) to a different department.
 Find out about certifications and credentials that support your profession. Establishing
mastery of professional knowledge can elevate your career.
Stress management
As career of someone is updated over time his/her stress related to job and responsibility is
increased. Mainly the person who starts career from novice he/she faces so many challenges is an
organization and in life to cope with the new environment, colleagues and some other internal
and external factors. In the early stages of career, who gets married faces more stressed due to
family life. But most of the employees who start their career without family and with family
don’t follow any process to handle the stress they are facing. But it is vital to manage stress

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effectively and efficiently to cope with the external and internal environment as well as
improving career opportunity with hardworking and proper training in a right way.
Stress mainly starts with the initial stage of mid-career. But managing stress is essential in all
stages of career that is from the very beginning of the career.
Objectives of the study
1. BroadObjectives
To estimate the level of stress of cash officers from assistant cash officer to assistant
manager (cash)
programs.
2. Specific Objectives
To determine the change of attitude after the stress management programs.
officers
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The research study is descriptive in nature. Describing the characteristics of a particular
individual or a group studies concerned with specific descriptive research studies. This study on
stress among cash officers (assistant officers to asst. manager) is descriptive in nature.
Population of the Study
All the cash officers from the grade assistant officer to assistant manager were taken into
consideration. Research was conducted on clear assumptions that the respondents would give
frank and fair answers in a pragmatic way and without any bias.

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Sample Design
After identifying the population of the research proposal, designing of sample is necessary. The
success of the study mostly depends on proper selection of population and designing of sample.
In this research proposal, cluster sampling is used which is the sub-sample of random sampling.
Area of the Study
The data collected for this study covers the branches of a commercial bank in Dhaka city only.
Sample Size
I have selected ten (10) cash officers from each branch. So, the cluster sample is fifty (50) from
five convenient branches. Among 10 members, four members will be interviewed respectively
from assistant cash officers and officers (cash) and more two members will be interviewed from
assistant manager. Keeping in mind all the constraints, the size of the Sample of the study was
selected as 50.
Sampling Unit
Dhaka city due to nature of study, I also visited various different branches of different
commercial banks of Dhaka city.
Sampling Technique
The cluster is a convenient sampling. All the cash officers from the grade assistant officer to
assistant manager were taken into consideration. Research was conducted on clear assumptions
that the respondents would give frank and fair answers in a pragmatic way and without any bias.

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Sampling Description
In order to understand the nature and characteristics of various respondents in this study, the
information was collected and analyzed according to their stress level which included the
characteristic of their respondents like education, age marital status and monthly income. This
description shows that respondents included in this survey belong to different backgrounds and
this turn increase the scope of the study.
What sampling is used?
In this research proposal, cluster sampling is used because cluster sampling is the sampling method
where different groups within a population are used as sample. This is different from stratified
sampling that uses the entire group or cluster as a sample rather than a randomly selected
member of all groups.
In this research proposal five branches of a commercial bank located in Dhaka city have been selected.
Those are as follows-
1. Principal Branch, Motijheel
2. Dhanmondi Branch, Dhanmodi, Dhaka
3. Mirpur Branch
4. Uttara Branch
5. Gulshan Branch
Why cluster sampling has been used
The main aim of cluster sampling can be specified as cost reduction and increasing the levels of
efficacy of sampling. In cluster sampling a cluster is perceived as a sampling unit where as in
stratified sampling only specific elements of strata are accepted as sampling unit.
Accordingly in cluster sampling, a complete list of clusters represents the sampling frame. Then
a few clusters are chosen randomly as source of primary data. In this research proposal, cash
officers from all branches are cluster population. Cash personnel includes from the grade of
assistant officers (cash) to assistant manager (cash).
Other reasons for selecting sampling cluster are as follows:
 The branches of the bank are spread all over Bangladesh that is natural in a population

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 The entire population is unknown
 Choosing cluster sampling is geographically convenient.
 Limited access to entire population
 Interviewing all members of the entire population is practically impossible because of time
constraints.
But I want to get information about the pressure or stress the cash officers face during their duty respect
to grade of the cash officers in a specific bank. So, I used cluster sampling to collect information from the
groups or branches in the population.
Data Collection
In order to achieve the objectives of this research, data will be collected both from the primary and
secondary sources. The primary data were collected from the respondents through a structured
questionnaire. A widely used Occupational Stress Index (OSI) developed by Srivastava ans Singh was
chosen to assess the Occupational Stress of the sample.
Finally, the following tests/tools were considered appropriate and selected for the study.
1. Occupational Stress Index (OSI) by Srivastava and Singh (1984)
2. Job Satisfaction Scale by Singh and Sharma (1986)
Besides the above tests, the demographic profile of each officer will be obtained as follows:
1. Name
2. Age
3. Gender a) male b) female
4. Qualifications
5. Job grade
6. Designation
7. Place of Job a) Rural c) Urban
8. Experience (in years)
9. Marital Status: Married / Unmarried)
If married, how many children you have been blessed with.
10. If wife employed, her profession and designation.
11. Monthly Income from all sources.

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OccupationalStress Index (OSI):
To measure job stress Occupational Stress Index developed by Srivastava and Singh (1984) will
be used. The authors have claimed that the tool may be conveniently administered to all
categories of employees. The scale consisted of forty six items, each to be rated on five point
scale. Out of 46 items, 28 were true keyed and rests 18 were false keyed. The validity of
Occupational stress index will be determined by computing co-efficient of correlation between
scales on the OSI and the various measures of job attitude and job behavior. Split half method
will be applied to establish the reliability of the scale which was found to be 0.935 by the
authors.
Administration of TestScales
The Occupational Stress Index by Dr. A.K. Srivastava and Dr. A.P. Singh was used to measure
the extent of stress which an employee perceives arising from various constituents and
conditions of his job. As the questionnaire consisted of both true-keyed and false-keyed items,
two different patterns of scoring had to be adopted for two types of items as follows:-
PROCEDURE OF DATA COLLECTION
The cash officers will be contracted personally for the purpose of data collection. Most of them
will be contacted individually at their places of posting. The test scale sheets will be sent to some
of the cash officers by registered post/courier also. A brief description of test scales along with

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the objectives and importance of the study will be explained to the subjects to ensure their
honest, correct and sincere responses. They will be asked to give responses as per the first reply
that comes to their mind after reading each question carefully. Enough time will be given and
they will be encouraged to give the appropriate responses. Whenever they feel any difficulty in
understanding any item, the researcher will try his best to help them in making them understand,
so that they can give the correct response. The subjects will be also ensured that their responses
will be kept confidential and will be used only for research purpose. Only those who were
cooperative and willing to respond were taken and others who showed callous will be deleted
out.
Statistical Analysis of Data
The raw scores were statistically analyzed in terms of means and standard Deviation. More over
collected data were arranged in logical of sequential order. To analysis the data percentage
analysis has been made simple bar diagrams pie charts, which is used for diagrammatic
representation of data.
Limitation of the Study
1. The research faced various difficulties in defining the objectives and framing the
questionnaires.
2. Difficulties in the data collection. Because the study has to elicit the personal information.
3. The area of study is limited to Dhaka city only.
4. Validity & Reliability of the data obtained depends on the responses from the respondent.
5. The time was limited. The size of the sample comparing to the population is very less.

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ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Inference: From the above table, it reveals that 37% of the respondents are belongs to female
category, 63% of the respondents are belongs to male category.

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CONCLUSION
The cash officers follow some unhealthy ways to cope with stress by selecting negative strategies
to avoid failure, aiming too low, over scheduling daily life etc., A study to evaluate the stress
among cash officers and effective management of stress in Dhaka City will be a society oriented
project keeping in mind the needs of the cash officers in backward area. The examination of
stress within the cash officers community is real cause for worry and the issue of stress among
cash officers has to be addressed immediately.
Future Scope of the study
REFERENCES
1. Srivastava AK and Singh AP 1984. Manual of Occupational Stress Index.Manovaigyanik
Parikchhan Sansthan, Varanasi,India.
2. Aaronson, A. Stephen (1981), The Stress Management Work Book, New York, Appleton-
Century-Crofts.
3. Dr. Avinash Kumar Srinivasan R, “Stress Management”,Role of Stress Management and aging
in the organization Jan -2006.
4. Jennifer M. Ragsdale, Terry A. Beehr,Simone Grebner, Kyunghee Han,International Journal of
Stress Management,Volume 18, Issue 2, May 2011, Pages 153-180.
5. Garrett HE and Woodworth RS 1966. Statistics in Psychology and Education. Longman Group
Limited, London. 134 pp.

Early stage career planning and Stress Management

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