The influences of occupational stress on teachers from the Romanian

educational system, during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as in the post-

pandemic period
Cristina Manole, Cristina Alpopi and Ana-Mădălina Potcovaru
Faculty of Administration and Public Management, University of Economic Studies,
Bucharest, Romania

Abstract
The paper analyzes the influences of occupational stress on a special category of employees,
namely on teachers in the Romanian educational system, during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well
as in the post-pandemic period. They have faced, throughout the entire mentioned period, radical
changes from the perspective of the ways of carrying out their daily activities with the students.
Thus, the transition to didactic activities in the online environment presupposed a continuous
effort, on the part of the teachers, to adapt the teaching/learning/evaluation activities to the new
conditions generated by the pandemic crisis. Without minimizing the importance of digital in the
didactic activity, the conclusion reached by the specialists, carrying out a global analysis of the
respective period, was that the tablet cannot replace the classroom time, and the teacher cannot
be replaced by the computer. Thus, closing schools and sending students home, in the online
environment, had dramatic consequences for them, generating major challenges for teachers.
From this perspective, the article approaches part of the relevant specialized literature from the
perspective of occupational stress, stressors and their effects on teachers, as well as identifying
the best solutions to prevent and combat it. (196 cuvinte are abstractul)
Keywords:......................................................................................................................................
Jel classification:...........................................................................................................................

I. Introduction
We believe that, during the entire period of the pandemic, as well as in the post-pandemic period
(post COVID-19), occupational stress research is more necessary than ever, because the results
obtained allow the adaptation of working conditions in organizations to the real possibilities of
employees. Stress at work generates adverse physical and mental reactions of employees when
there is a mismatch between the demands of jobs and the real capabilities of people, so necessary
to fulfill the requirements of the positions held (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2016).
During the pandemic, employees in all fields of activity faced a certain level of stress and
anxiety, reaching depression, as a result of the risks they were subjected to, due to fulfillment in
the online or hybrid system of the specific requirements of the positions held (Tran and all, 2020,
p.27). In general, people's response to occupational stress during the pandemic and post-
pandemic period was that some left their jobs, others managed to adapt to it, and others denied it
existed. In this context, many people sought support from those around them, generally family,
friends, colleagues, instead others, unfortunately, found support in harmful factors such as
alcohol/drugs. We can say that, in general, stress is perceived through its negative aspects
(distress), but its physical and psychological consequences can sometimes be constructive for the
individual (energy, dynamism of intelligence, stimulating tension, etc.), being that, in this case,
of eustress (Manole and Nica, 2020, p.37). So, distress manifests itself through destructive
effects at the individual level, such as various diseases, of a physiological nature, but especially
psychological. From this perspective, a major role in detecting stressors and their effects on
employees belongs to both human resources managers (including the human resources
department, through its specialists) and other managers of organizations, who are able to adopt
the best practices for preventing stress, respectively improving its level or even combating it.
According to specialists, managers must make permanent efforts for a better understanding of
occupational stress (Tucker et al., 2013), precisely to know its causes and effects, as well as to
establish ways of managing it (Ahmad et al., 2015). At the organizational level, stress affects not
only the management of companies, but also all other employees, as such, more attention should
be paid in order to reduce it (Seňová and Antošová, 2014). Derevenco, Anghel and Băban (1992,
pp. 145-146) claim that interventions to reduce and eliminate occupational stress, based on a
more in-depth knowledge of its mechanisms, manifestations and forms, can greatly contribute to
increasing the quality professional life and the humanization of work, trends that have become
current and of great economic and scientific importance (Manole and Nica, 2020, p. 53).
II. Theoretical perspectives
2.1 The concept of stress
It is known that the notion of stress was used for the first time, in 1936, by H. Selye, with the aim
of "designating that condition in which the individual's body is threatened by imbalance, under
the action of agents that endanger its homeostatic mechanisms"(Caramete, 2002, p.29). From this
point of view, any element that destroys this balance, whether of a physical nature (various
traumas, subjecting the body to inappropriate microclimate factors - for example too low/too
high temperatures, etc.), psychological (emotions, various experiences, etc.) or chemical
(poison), is called "stressor agent", so the term stress designates both the aggressor agent and the
body's reaction to its action (Manole and Nica, 2020, p.35). According to Selye "this response,
non-specific, is related to neuroendocrine mechanisms" (Sillamy, 1996, p.301). According to
Stranks (2005, p.4), stress can be defined as the equivalent of how well or how badly people can
cope with the daily changes in their lives: at home in the family, at work, in society, and so on .
(Stranks, J. (2005). Stress at work. Routledge). At the same time, professional stress is defined as
a series of "harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the demands of the
workplace do not correspond to the person's abilities, resources, needs, which may lead to
deterioration or even damage to the state of health" (Carabet, 2017, p.5). In this sense, daily
stress is determined as a result of the appearance of demands that exceed the individual's ability
to adapt, disrupting his psychological balance (Ahmad, Hussain, Saleem & Qureshi, 2015, p.46).
According to Beehr and Newman, stress is "a condition resulting from the interaction between
people and their jobs and characterized by changes within people that force them to deviate from
normal functioning" (Manole and Nica, 2020, p.37). So, stress represents an adaptation response
of the body to an external situation, which manifests itself in physiological, psychological and/or
behavioral deviations of the members of an organization. (F. Luthans, Organizational behavior,
Fourth Edition, McGraw-Hill Book, New York, 1985, p. 164). Shortly, stress is the result of
interactions between individual needs/resources and environmental demands (Travers and
Cooper, 1996). Lazarus (1991, pp. 1-13), cited in Ratnawat and Jha, (2014, p.1), states that stress
is "an affection or feeling that a person experiences when he perceives that demands exceed the
personal and social resources that the individual possesses". At the same time, stress is "an
important source of professional exhaustion and a non-negligible cause of various diseases"
(Manole, 2014, p.31). Thus, it can be said that the shock waves, of an affective nature, to which
man is subjected, in the professional environment as well as in the extra-professional one, lead
over time to the destruction of his defense mechanisms against various diseases, increasing the
risk of serious ailments, with direct influences on work capacity, the level of performance at the
workplace, as well as its development potential (Manole and Nica, 2020, pp.35-36). In the
opinion of Carabet (2017, p.5), occupational stress is defined "as a multitude of harmful physical
and emotional responses, which occur when the demands of the workplace do not correspond to
the capacities, resources, needs of the person, which may lead to damage or even damage to the
state of health". Stress has been classified, by specialists (Kendall et al., 2000), in several
categories, respectively, acute (most frequent), posttraumatic or chronic (most destructive). Thus,
those who have an acute response to stress usually return to their previous (normal) life within a
relatively short period of time (Kendall et al., 2000). As a rule, acute stress is generated by the
reactive thinking of individuals in relation to the events that happened recently or their future
challenges and needs (Tran et al., 2020). In the opposite situation, in which people are
continuously exposed to stress for long periods, respectively their responses to stress are
continuously activated, then chronic stress can occur (Bickford, 2005). It is generated by the
serious problems that people face, such as the fact that their lives are totally out of control, and in
the long term, they give up looking for solutions (Tran et al., 2020). From this point of view,
many research studies have demonstrated the existence of strong relationships between the
manifestation of chronic stress and the occurrence of various diseases (Grimshaw, 1999).
Chronic stress makes the human body sick, causing a whole series of physical ailments, such as
headaches, backaches, gastrointestinal disorders, including heart disease, etc., at the same time
generating an increase in occupational accidents, as a result of human errors (Tran et al., 2020).
At the same time, chronic stress has a psychological impact on people and through the
appearance of anxiety and depression, which decreases their ability to concentrate, the level of
their professional performance, as well as the ability to make effective decisions (Kazmi, 2019).
The research, carried out in the last decades, on the consequences of chronic stress led to the
development of a new concept, that of "burnout" (the so-called exhaustion syndrome). In
addition to the problems generated by occupational stress, previously mentioned: heart disease,
gastrointestinal problems, musculoskeletal disorders, anxiety, depression, fatigue, absenteeism,
accidents, substance abuse, workplace/family conflicts, it also counts the burnout syndrome
(Chirico, 2016, p. 443). (Chirico, F. (2016). Job stress models for predicting burnout syndrome: a
review. Annali dell'Istituto superiore di sanita, 52(3), 443-456). According to Shirom (2003, p.
248), "burnout is an affective reaction to permanent stress, the central point of which is the
gradual diminution, over time, of individual energy resources, including emotional exhaustion,
physical fatigue, boredom, as well as cognitive discouragement". According to Arsene's opinion
(2020, p. 17), the concepts of stress and burnout are frequently used as synonyms, hence the
confusion regarding their delimitation. (Arsene, I. (2020). Influențele stresului organizațional
asupra sănătății mentale și fizice în activitatea profesională (didactică). Știință, educație, cultură,
vol. 3). It can be said that, burnout develops after a prolonged period of exposure to occupational
stress and, therefore, could be regarded as a major manifestation of its consequences (Melamed
et al., 2006). But, considering the complexity of the burnout syndrome, it will be the fundamental
object of a future research.
2.2 Occupational stress factors
Regarding the stress factors, Vanishree (2014) carried out a research with the aim of
analyzing them within small and medium-sized companies, concluding that overwork of
employees at work, work ambiguity and professional conflicts are major sources of occupational
stress, thus that, following the results of the research, the author recommended that organizations
establish and apply relevant methods for redesigning work and simultaneously organize frequent
consultations as well as workshops to support employees in order to reduce stress levels. At the
same time, another recommendation that Vanishree (2014) put forward, following the research
carried out, was to change organizational policies to give employees more control over their
work. In full agreement with the previously mentioned, the stress factors inside the organization
can be grouped as follows (Caramete, 2002, p. 40): structures (such as high formalization,
centralization of decisions, conflicts between employees, reduced possibilities for career
development , etc.); organizational measures (such as ambiguous procedures, unrealistic job
descriptions, inequities of the payment system, incorrect evaluations/arbitrary reviews of
professional performances, etc.); processes (such as poor communication, the existence of an
inadequate information system, ambiguous objectives, etc.); physical conditions (such as
inadequate microclimate conditions – excessive noise, inadequate lighting, polluted air, etc.).
Stress is not limited only to activities originating from within the organization (intra-
organizational stress factors), but a lot of extra-organizational stress factors can be identified,
which have a major impact on the employee, such as: family environment; social class; changes
from society; economic and financial conditions; the human community, etc. (Caramete, 2002,
p.37). Considering the fact that, in any organization, there are both individuals and professional
groups, there are two categories of stressors, as mentioned by Luthans (1985, p.164): individual
factors (such as conflict, overload, ambiguity, career changes, personality dimensions -
especially character traits, life itself, etc.), as well as professional group factors (such as lack of
cohesion at the group, conflicts between groups, absence of social support between group
members, etc.) (Caramete, 2002, pp.37-39). From this perspective, Beehr and Newman
synthesized stress factors as follows:
Table 1. Occupational stress factors – Categories

Categories of occupational Environmental factors - Examples

stress factors
Job requirements and job - job characteristics considered to be intrinsically motivating;
 characteristics
The requirements of the role
- weekly work schedule;
- changing the workload;
- responsibility (for people or things);
- work pace;
- overuse and underuse of competencies and so on.
- role overloading; conflict of roles; role ambiguity.

Characteristics and - job security; company size; organizational structure; the

organizational conditions
The organization's external
requirements and conditions
The psychological state
(personality traits and behavioral
characteristics)
The physical state
Life stage characteristics
The demographic data
Source: according to Beehr and Newman, 1978
technological and communication system; personnel
assurance policies and procedures; the assessment, control
and reward systems; training and professional development
programs; the style of management; organizational climate;
the possibilities of advancement/promotion in the position
and so on.
- number and nature of customers; national or international
trade unions; governmental laws and regulations; necessary
service providers; technological and scientific
developments; geographical location of the organization,
etc.
Personal factors – Examples
- motivations/objectives/aspirations (career/life); skills
(especially related to the professional task and adaptation);
self-esteem; the need for perfection;
introversion/extroversion; intrapersonal conflicts (e.g.,
between ego-ideal and reality); values (human, religious,
etc.); personal work standards, etc.
- physical condition (health); diet and eating habits; patterns
of exercise, work, sleep and relaxation, etc.
- stages of human development; the stages of the family;
career stages at an individual level.
- age; education (level and type); gender; race; socio-
economic status; occupation/profession.

Concluding this part of the study, we can say that there are a multitude of stress factors in the
professional environment, so it is necessary to find the best solutions for managing them.
2.3 The influences of occupational stress on teachers

III. Research methodology

a. Aim and research objectives/ hypotheses
b. Research design and data collection
c. The main characteristics of the sample
d. Data analysis and research findings
IV. Conclusions and limits of the research
V. Future research
VI. Authors Contributions