THE QUALITY OF LIFE

IN UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

TRANSIENT ‘SOMEHOW’

The image of the overworked and sleep-deprived software engineer is all too familiar to the IT city. Feel-good stories of that professional who left the ‘ corporate hell-hole ’ and moved to the countryside have won murmurs of empathy. But a recent study has shown that a lot of techies don’t mind the stress because of the QoL, or the Quality of Life, that their profession guarantees. In short, drudgery’s fine, because the money’s great.Offering an insight into the changing dynamics of career options, especially in the line of IT and IT-enabled services (ITES), a study by a team of doctors from the Bengaluru-based Public Health Foundation of India and NIMHANS, has discovered that techies are willing to undergo high levels of stress for a better quality of life for their families.Their study of over 1,000-plus techies working at various software firms of Bengaluru has been published in the ‘Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine’.The team of doctors studied 1,071 professionals in the IT and ITES sector, in the age group of 20-59 years.Techies were posed with several questions that ranged from their lifestyle to working atmosphere. “A total of 32 in-depth interviews were conducted with techies who ranged from freshers to team leaders and project managers. During the interviews, our team touched upon topics like socio-demographic factors, individual experience, quality of work environment, experience with the stress at work and home, awareness about hypertension and health disorders,” one of the researchers explained.The replies attached with a score were calculated against the standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO)-prescribed Quality of Life-BREF instrument to determine the impact of several diseases on the quality of human life.Dr Giridhar R Babu, a member of the research team, said: “It is plausible that professionals can subject themselves to greater degrees of stress in their occupational settings in order to achieve better QoL. While many of us generally think that people often opt out of high-stress jobs, it was the vice-versa here as they deliberately chose to undergo heavy stress that would reward them with better QoL.”Evidently, out of the 1,000-plus techies, a whopping 55 per cent were found to have moderate quality of physical life. “If you look at the psychological domain of QoL, about 40 per cent belonged to the moderate category, while only 35 per cent confessing to have poor QoL. Surprisingly, 60 per cent of the techies fell into the category of moderate quality of social life. Being in the ‘Good’ category for physical and psychological QoL was found to be significantly associated with presence of higher occupational stress,” Dr Giridhar revealed.Qualitative analysis of the sample group by researchers offered varied insight into the working style of techies, besides revealing their understanding of health factors.The qualitative analysis included their work time, pressure, travel, social life, income, control over the job, harassment at workplace and family relationship. While many techies complained negatively about the factors, all of them agreed that they withstand all these adverse factors for better income that has improved their QoL compared with other jobs.The analysis revealed that most of them had to spend their time either in the office or attending work-related calls or in preparation at home to complete the stressful work. “More the number of years in service, less will be the effect of stress, according to the revelations by professionals. Working in shifts disturbed their diurnal rhythm and had cascading effect on other activities. About 64 per cent of techies worked for more than eight hours a day and about 66 per cent worked for more than 40 hours per week. Shockingly, 53 per cent executives worked on weekends! All these factors did affect their social life. Yet, they chose to move on as it all complemented their QoL,” said another researcher.Another factor that was noticed by researchers was unfamiliar domain in their works. “The professionals may have been trained in a few disciplines and gained experience only in those fields. But their managers or companies forced them to work in unfamiliar domains. This resulted in inferior thinking about their competency and caused undue stress on many of them. At times, even a small act of gratitude like appreciation by seniors worked wonders even when financial incentives were withdrawn due to slow down. However, many accepted that it was difficult to get management’s appreciation,” Dr Giridhar explained.Quoting the earlier findings by noted endocrinologist Hans Selye, Dr Giridhar said, “There are factors like ‘Eustress’ (Good Stress) and ‘Distress’. Eustress is something that allows accrual of some common benefits due to stress until it reaches a threshold point. But beyond that point, any amount of stress would be called ‘Distress’ as it would have negative effect. The techies, with considerable experience in the field and income over the years may have been used to high-stress levels.”Reeling under severe stress, techies have found solace in the word ‘somehow’, which signified that high-stress levels were only momentary and a better quality of life awaiting them ahead. If they ‘somehow’ accomplished the project, then a reward would be waiting for them. “If a client asks for the moon, the managers would just take it and fix a deadline for us. ‘Somehow’ we have to get it before the deadline and ‘somehow’ finish the project,” said a 32-year-old techie.A few others have even withstood dismal working environment and harassment by bosses for the fact that their jobs provide them and their family with a better quality of life.The researchers found that their willingness to handle stress was the promise of a good pay package. “We are here because of the money. It is liked mostly for the economic security,” a 36-year-old techie said in an interview.