THE EFFECT OF DEPRESSION, ANXIETY AND STRESS TO WORK LIFE BALANCE AMONG

BPO COMPANY EMPLOYEES

Reiner T. Librado
Jem Rose B. Polayao

ABSTRACT
The success of any organization is highly dependent on its workforce. Philippines, known to be the
fastest-growing BPO hotspot around the globe has transcended, and now it provides high-quality,
paying-jobs to million of Filipinos. One of the neglected areas of concerned in most organization is the
mental health-care of their employees. The data pertaining to the study has been collected from BPO
employees of Digos City. The aim of this study is identify if there is a relationship between Depression,
Anxiety and Stress and Work-Life Balance among BPO employees. Analysis of available data and
literature reveals that some of the factors of the WLB is applicable to some employees.

Introduction

With the emergence of technology and the usefulness of delegation, some companies invested
their capitals on the Business Process Outsourcing or commonly known as BPO companies. Investors
put up BPO companies to aid them in catering the queries of their customers as well as maintaining
good customer relations. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is defined as the movement of business
process from inside the organization to external service provider (Click, 2004). Also he discusses that
there are 5 BPO international hotspot that emerged around the globe and that this BPO companies
specializes in different services; India, China, Mexico, United States and the Philippines.

Many researchers cited that a BPO company in the Philippines is one of the fastest-growing
sectors in the country (Errighi&Bodwell, 2016; Shead, 2017). It has transcended the geopolitical
climate of the country, and is now is more than just a lucrative enterprise as it provides high-quality,
paying –jobs to millions of Filipino as well as encouraging economic activity and investments around
the world. Accordingly, it is also a key developing industry because of the low cost of living, and
abundant supplies of educated workers proficient in the English language (Shead, 2017). Some
researchers have been interested in studying employees' work-life balance as it becomes a subject of
concern in some areas associated with work and employment (Vanishree, 2012; Razak, Yusof, Azidin,
Latif& Ismail, 2014; Delecta, 2011). In the study of Manjalu Devi &Saranya (2018), he explained that
there are many different ways in describing work-life balance; that it denotes to the arrangement
between personal associated skilled activities in an individual's life and therefore the level of those
involving their job square measure gift within the home. He then added that stress could be a common
feature of a poor work-life balance and mental stress as the major and pathological state. Psychological
health is fundamental to people's well-being and can be defined as “a state of well-being in which the
individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work
productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her own community” (World
Health Organisation, 2005, p.18). Psychological health can be assessed by identifying symptoms of
anxiety, depression, social dysfunction and feelings of incompetence and uncertainty (Goldberg, 1972).

And when an employee puts all their time on work-related activities, for them it seems that they
are neglecting the other important aspects of their life and with this will cause stress, irritation and
unhappiness etc. (Menaria, 2016). Also, a balance between work and life doesn't always refer to those
individuals with caring responsibilities but for everyone; add to that is the economic activities and
competition that is happening in our society that is causing our stress level to increase. Stress can be
categorized into two, the good stress or “eustress” and the bad stress which is the “distress”. It is really
factual that stress is really inevitable and that it is part of human nature, it may either be physical or
mental or personal or official but whatever stress a person is experiencing it will always affect their
work as an employee and their social life as an individual. In the study of Yogeshwaran (2016), she
further elaborated that stress is one of the factor of work life and personal life of the employees, which
it contributes to absenteeism, conflict and employees exit. And that work-life balance requires
cooperation and coordination for it can help in increasing the productivity in the workplace and
improving the work environment in the workplace.

Review of Related Literature

In a society filled conflicting responsibilities and commitments, work-life balance has become a
predominant issue in the workplace. Work-life balance is a topical issue due to the increased amount of
technology that removes the importance of physical location in defining the work-life balance. Stress is
a common feature of work-life balance. In the information economy, mental stress has been identified
as a significant economic and health problem, causing by a perceived need of employees to do more in
less time.
Work-life balance

Balancing work and family responsibilities has become increasingly difficult in the modern
workplace, as demographic and social changes have occur, advance technology, continuous global
competition, economic concerns and societal pressure makes it hard for people to keep their job and
home separate (Jones, Burke & Westman, 2006). The term “Work-Life Balance” was coined in 1986
and it was first used in the U.S. in 1970; it describes the balance between an individual's work and
personal life (Russell & Bowman, 2000). Menaria (2016) explained that the term has three important
components – 'work', 'life' and 'balance'. In simple terms, “work” is the activity or effort that we put to
produce or accomplish something while “life” are the activities outside work and also “balance” in
itself has a variety of meanings. Morever, there are few definitions that would help us understand the
concept of work-life balance:

Greenhaus (2002) defined work life balance as satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home
with a minimum of role conflict.

Greenhaus (2003) also defined work life balance as the extent to which an individual is equally
engaged and equally satisfied with his or her work role and family role.

Felstead .et .al (2002) defines work-life balance as the relationship between the institutional and
cultural times and spaces of work and non-work in societies where income is predominantly generated
and distributed through labor markets.

According to the study of Razak, Yusof, Azidin, Latif& Ismail, (2014), work life balance work
life balance has important consequence for employee attitudes towards their organizations as well as
the lives of employees (Scholarios, 2004). The balance between work, personal work and personal time
has to be maintained in the best possible manner. With the changing lifestyle, demanding work life,
disintegrating family system, people often complain about not finding enough time or being fatigued
too much. Someone's life can be considered unbalanced when the amount of time one works causes
sort of conflict of stress in other areas of life. Also negative stress is becoming an illness to the in the
work environment; that it does not only lead to physical illness but it can also contribute to some
mental health problem of an individual (Barden, 2001; Razak, Yusof, Azidin, Latif & Ismail, 2014;
Yogeshwaran, 2016).

Depression, Anxiety and Stress and Work-life Balance

Due to the changes in the global competitiveness, the pressure on workplace to produce
maximum output and enhance competitiveness is also increasing day by day. Indeed, to perform better
to their job, there is a requirement for workers to perform multiple tasks in the workplace to keep
abreast of changing technologies (Cascio, 1995; Quick, 1997). Yogeshwaran (2016), defined stress as
the strain from the conflict between our external environment and us, leading to emotional and physical
pressure. There is both positive and negative stress, depending on each individual's unique perception
of the tension between the two forces.

Demerouti, Bakkar, Nachreiner and Schanfeli (2001), Yperen and Janssen (2002, 2003) studied
that stress is always associated with demand and resources. He further elaborated that demands are the
responsibilities, pressure, obligation that individuals face in the workplace, on the other hand, resources
are things within an individuals control that can be used to resolve the demand.

Stress, anxiety and depression have been recognized as important outcome measures in various
work environments (Bennett, Williams, Page, hood, Woollard, 2004; Newbury-Birch & Kamali, 2001;
Caplan, 1994). Plaisier et al. (2007), suggested that “poor working conditions may be an important
precursor of stress and may therefore, contribute to the development of depression and anxiety”. Stress
is often described as being associated with anxiety and depression at workplace, and some studies have
suggested that stress, anxiety and depression are also related to poor quality of life (Chen et al, 2006;
Quilty, Van Ameringen, Mancini, Oakman, Farvolden, 2003).

Theoretical & Conceptual Framework

This study is anchored on the Spillover Theory by Williams and Alliger (1994). In the study of
Vijaya Kumar & Janakiram (2017) in their study of the Theories of Work Life Balance-A Conceptual
Review, they explained that spill over theory proposes the most popular view of relationship between
work and family. Also several researchers suggested that workers carry the feelings, emotions,
attitudes; skills and behaviors that they establish at work into their family life and vice versa (Vijaya
Kumar & Janakiram, 2017; Belsky et al., 1985). accordingly, Edwards and Rothbard (2000)
interepreted two types of spillover: (a) the positive association between life and work satisfaction and
life and work values (Zedeck, 1992) and (b) transference in entirety of skills and behaviors between
domains (Repetti, 1987) such as when fatigue from work is experienced at home or when family
demands interfere with work demands.
The paradigm that follows illustrates the relationship between depression, anxiety and stress and work-
life balance.

Depression

Work-Life
Anxiety
Balance

Stress

Significance of the Study

The result of this study will be beneficial to the employers to engage with their employee and develop a
good work-life balance scheme to promote efficient and effective workers. Also to assess wether there
workers are still healthy physically and mentally. To the school for it will contribute to a new topic in
research. And to the students who will continue and enhance the research and will be used for different
setting.

Objectives of the Study

The main thrust of this study is to compare the effect of depression, anxiety and stress towards work-
life balance among business process outsourcing (BPO) company employees. The following questions
were formulated:

1. What is the level of work-life balance among JCS Global Outsourcing and MJ Caballero
Call Center?

2. What is the level of Depression, Anxiety and Stress between JCS Global Outsourcing
and MJ Caballero Call Center?
 3. Is there a significant relationship between Work-Life Balance and Depression, Anxiety
and Stress?

Null Hypothesis

There is no significant relationship between Work-Life Balance and Depression, Anxiety and Stress.

Alternative Hypothesis

There is a significant relationship between Work-Life Balance and Depression, Anxiety and Stress.

Methods

Research Design

This study employed correlational research. Correlation research is used to explore the relationships or
links between variables.

Respondents & Setting

The data used in this study are BPO employees of JCS Global Outsourcing & MJ Caballero Call Center
composed of day shift & night shift which is located in Digos City. Since the population of the
employees are only few, the researchers used quota sampling and selected 25 employees from both
companies to produce 50 respondents. Letter was send to the respective companies for the approval of
the request. Then the questionnaires was distributed.

Measure

Two scales were used to get the important information/data related to depression, anxiety and stress and
work-life balance. The various tools used are described below.

(a) Work Life Balance Scale (Hayman, 2005)

Hayman (2005) adapted work life balance scale originally developed by Fisher (2001). The more
inclusive wording of personal life compared to family provides the opportunity to measure the interface
between work and non work regardless of employee marital or family status. This broader approach is
useful for organizations to assess the non work domain of employees, as family may not be relevant to
all employees. Moreover this scale also measures positive spill over or enhancement (Hayman, 2005).
The scale consisted of 15 items, designed to assess three dimensions of work life balance, i.e., work
interference with personal life (WIPL-7 items), personal life interference with work (PLIW-4 items),
and work/personal life enhancement (WPLE-4 items). The first dimension, work interference with
personal life (WIPL) included the items e.g. “Personal life suffers because of work” and “Put personal
life on hold for work”. The content of these items reflect the extent to which work interferes with
personal life. The second dimension is work interference with personal life (WIPL). The items included
in this component indicate the opposite direction of work personal life interference. Examples of the
items include “Personal life drains me of energy for work” and “Hard to work because of personal
matters”. They depict the extent to which ones’ personal life interferes with work. The items of the
third 94 dimension work/personal life enhancement (WPLE) involved positive effects of ones’ work on
personal life or vice versa, the extent to which ones’ personal life enhances work. Examples of the
items included were, “Personal life gives me energy for my job” and “Better mood because of my job”.
The respondents were asked to indicate the frequency with which they felt in a particular way during
the past three months, using a seven point time related scale (e.g. 1=Not at all, 4=Sometimes and 7=All
the time). Results of higher order factor analysis provided empirical evidence that the three dimensions
were indicators of a single latent construct (Fisher-McAuley, et al., 2003). Reliability for the scale,
estimated using Cronbach alpha coefficient was .93 for WIPL, .85 for PLIW and .69 for WPLE. The
scale was tested for reliability under the Indian conditions and Cronbach alpha was found to be .89.
Though the respondents were asked to indicate the frequency with which they felt in a particular way
during the past three months, using a seven point time related scale (e.g. 1=Not at all, 4=Sometimes
and 7=All the time), the scoring was done as 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (7 for Not at all, 4 for Sometimes, and 1
for All the time) for the dimensions of WIPL (except item 7, which was reverse scored) and PLIW,
since the items were negatively worded. High score indicated lower interference and, lower levels of
interference were interpreted as higher levels of work life balance.

For the dimension of WPLE, scoring was 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 (i.e. 1 for Not at all, 4 for Sometimes
and 7 for All the time) as the items were positively worded. High score indicated high work/ personal
life enhancement. Higher levels of work/ personal life enhancement are considered to be associated
with higher levels of work life balance. The overall work life balance score was thus computed by
adding the scores on the three dimensions.

In nutshell, the interpretation of scores on various dimensions is:

WIPL and PLIW

• High score indicates less interference, thus high balance.

• Low score indicates high interference, thus low balance.

WPLE

• High score indicates high enhancement, thus high balance.

• Low score indicates low enhancement, thus low balance.

(b) Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS)

The DASS is a measure of mental health focusing on the three traits of depression, anxiety and
stress. The DASS was designed by Syd Lovibond and Peter Lovibond at the University of New South
Wales in 1995. The DASS was constructed not merely as another set of scales to measure
conventionally defined emotional states, but to further the process of defining, understanding, and
measuring the ubiquitous and clinically significant emotional states usually described as depression,
anxiety and stress.

The test consists of a list of 42 symptoms, each of which is to be rated on a four point scale of how
much you had that symptom in the last week.

Data Analysis & Discussion

Table 1: Mean Score of the level of WLB among JSL Global Outsourcing

and MJ Caballero Call center

T N Mean Std. Deviation Descriptive Rating
Work Interference w/ 51 2.664 1.231

Personal Life (WIPL)

Personal Life Interference 51 2.72 1.23617

w/ Work (PLIW)
Work w/ Personal Life 51 5.02 1.44171

Interference (WPLE)
Total 51 3.47 1.30

Table 1 shows the results of the three dimensions of Work Life Balance revealed that the level of Work
Life Balance among JSL Global Outsourcing and MJ Caballero call center as measured in the three
components were results to somewhat disagree. As shown in the table that the Work Interference w/
Personal Life (WIPL) had a mean score of 2.66 almost the same with Personal Life Interference w/
Work (PLIW) had a mean score of 2.72 and Work w/ Personal Life Interference (WPLE) with the mean
score of 5.02 .mostly, does not apply to the respondents but some factors does affect them.

Table 2: Mean Score of the Table of Depression, Anxiety and Stress between JSL Global
Outsourcing and MJ Caballero Call center
T N Mean Std. Descriptive Rating
Deviation
Depression 51 2.6057 1.11000
Anxiety 51 3.0600 .88622
Stress 51 3.0443 1.00416
Total 51 2.90 1

Table 2 shows: The mean score shown the level of depression that results to 2.60, anxiety and stress
which almost have the same mean score 3.06 and 3.04 that results to moderate, somehow suggest that
the three variables might be experienced by the BPO employees, it does an impact between JSL
Global Outsourcing and MJ Caballero Call center.

Table 3: Correlation Coefficients between WLB and Depression, Anxiety and Stress.

Model Depression Anxiety Stress

Work – Pearson Correlation .633** .647** .689**
Life Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000
Balance
N 51 51 51

HO: There is no significant relationship between Depression, Anxiety and Stress and Work-Life
Balance
H1: There is a significant relationship between Depression, Anxiety and Stress and Work-Life
Balance

Table 3 shows the correlation coefficient between Work-Life Balance and Depression, Anxiety and
Stress. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected as it reveals that the r-value of .633 between Work-Life
Balance and Depression, .647 between Work-Life Balance and Anxiety & .689 for Work-Life Balance
and Stress. And it is supported by the P-value of .000 which is lower than the 0.05 level of significance.
So it means that there is a strong correlation between the two variables. Hence, depression, anxiety and
stress is said to be positively related to the work-life balance among BPO employees.

Conclusion

This study makes some contribution to Work-Life Balance studies regarding the Business Process
Outsourcing employee around Digos City. The study identified that in the work-life balance there are
few factors which are applicable and is experienced by the employees in the respective companies. The
study also confirms that as what was explained in the studies of (Kluczyk, 2013; Sanne, 2004; Razak et
al., 2014) that different mental health issues also affects and impacts the work-life balance of
employees. Also it does not only affects there work-family life but also it decreases the individuals
wellbeing, productivity and performance at work.
Today BPO sectors stand to a very stiff competitive environment challenges wrought by changing
business scenarios and every increasing complexities that are forcing BPO employees to perform under
very compelling situation then quite vulnerable to various mental retards. A Work-Life Balance is about
creating and maintaining supportive and healthy work environments, which will enable employees to
have balance between work and personal responsibilities and thus strengthen employee loyalty and
productivity.