Volume 4 Issue 3 (October 2012) - Ozean Publications

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European Journal of Educational Studies 4(3), <strong>2012</strong> competitive nature of the education enterprise is that, it is more often than not emotionally demanding, mentally frustrating and productively challenging. This developmental phenomenon is likely to increase fear, uncertainty, emotional instability, stress and higher levels of poor productivity among university employee‟s considering the fact that they could feel overwhelmed at work, loses confidence and may become irritable or withdrawn when they feel they lack the ability to meet up with the global trend and expectations. This could also make them less productive and less effective on their job. The Nigerian University environment is a peculiar one. Peculiar in the sense that the desire to adopt a paradigm shift to meet up with the challenges and demands of globalization on education have made Universities in Nigeria crisis ridden. The legion of crisis experienced in Universities in Nigeria has consistently have negative toll on the system in the form of incessant strike by it employee‟s, unstable university calendars, brain drain, non-commitment and poor job performance. Therefore, in considering the significant and strategic need of university education for developmental transformation of any society, it makes it imperative to apply measure that could help employees develop high emotional intelligence potentials and stress management capabilities that would enable them adjust favourably to the 21 st century workplace globalised challenges to ensure the attainment of high level job performance. LITERATURE REVIEW The interest of researchers in investigating the germane nature job performance as a construct in the field of industrial or personnel psychology is due to its immense importance to the individual, organisation and the society at large. Performance has been defined by Hellriegel, Jackson and Slocum (1999) as the level of an individual‟s work achievement after having exerted effort. Cummings and Schwab (1973) and Whetten and Cameron (1998) believed that performance is ultimately an individual phenomenon with environmental variables influencing performance primarily through their effect on the individual determinants of performance – ability and motivation. This implies that job performance involves quantity and quality of outcomes from individual or group effort attainment (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2005). Robbins (2005) described job performance as the amount of effort an individual will exert in his or her job. Moreover, the essence of job performance relies on “the demands of the job, the goals and missions of the organization, and beliefs in the organization about which behaviours are most valued” (Befort & Hattrup, 2003, p. 17). Also, Audu (2008), asserted that in order to measure job performance, it requires an observer to make a value judgment as to the extent to which the one being evaluated is behaving in a way that contributes to the organization‟s goals. However, Campbell (1990) reported that organizational goal is also value judgments made by individuals empowered to establish these goals. Therefore, the measurement of job performance is based on three interacting systems: (a) the goals established by the organization; (b) the behaviours demonstrated by the person being assessed (rate); and (C) the evaluator‟s ability to accurately interpret and rate behaviour in relation to organizational goals (Ilgen & Feldman, 1983). Kumar and Rooprai (2009) contended that over the last decade Emotional Intelligence (EI) has drawn significant interest from academics and HR practitioners throughout the world. The development of emotional intelligence skills is important because it is an area that is generally overlooked when skills development programmes are designed. And yet research shows that emotions, properly managed, can drive trust, loyalty, and commitment. Many of the greatest productivity gains, innovations, and accomplishments of individuals, teams, and organisations have occurred within such a framework (Cooper, 1997). Emotional intelligence is a social intelligence that enables people to recognise their own, and other peoples' emotions. Moreover, emotional intelligence enables people to differentiate those emotions, and to make appropriate choices for thinking and action (Cooper and Sawaf, 1997; Mayer and Salovey, 1993). It is an intelligence that may be learned, developed and improved (Perkins, 1994; Sternberg, 1996). According to Salovey and Mayer (1990), emotional intelligence includes an "ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions". A related definition adds the "ability to adaptively recognize emotion, express emotion, regulate emotion and harness emotions" (Schutte, Malouff, Hall, Haggerty, Cooper, Golden and Dornheim 1998). Personal or emotional intelligence has been found to vary by age or developmental level and gender (Gardner, 1999). 320
European Journal of Educational Studies 4(3), <strong>2012</strong> It is of note that the human body generally expects to experience some measure of stress, and is equipped to handle it well. But unfortunately, it expects stress to happen only in short intervals. People in high stress jobs or who must handle stressful situations on a daily basis may end up with a myriad of negative effects from too much stress. One way to handle this situation is to develop in individuals stress management ability and capability. Exposing workers to stress management techniques is essential to enable them to effectively manage stressful situations faced at work. This is based on the contention that negative stress can reduce individual‟s capacity to perform and function well, either at school or in the workplace. Therefore, stress is not something to be dismissed. Aside from the personal impact stress on the individual worker, it could also affect how workers relate with their organisation. Thus, occupational stress is considered as one of the most important work-related psychological problems. To date, research findings demonstrate that specific coping strategies lead to positive results, via the impact of specific positive elements such as relaxation and reframing. Stress is defined as an unpleasant psychological state related to emotions of fear, anxiety, disturbance, anger, sadness and grief (Botheridge 2001, 2003; Schaufeli & Kompier, 2001). Lazarus (2000) defined stress as a complex, multidimensional negative emotion. Due to the detrimental effects of stress various coping strategies have been designed and are applied at an individual or at an organisational level. While there has been a large body of research that examines the efficacy of a variety of individual coping strategies many researchers link stress coping mechanisms to positive attributes and psychological features such as creativity, broadening, relaxation and reframing (Caulfield, Chang, Dollard, & Elshaug, 2004; Galanakis, Moraitou, Garivaldis, & Stalikas, 2009). Studies have led to the belief that biographical factors play a major role in job performance. The general belief is that job performance decreases with age, although the older workers bring positive qualities like experience to the job. The average age of employees are getting higher with increasing numbers of middle-aged and older workers employed in many different jobs (Fullerton, 1995; Johnston and Packer, 1987). Hence, it is important to know whether work performance is higher or lower for older employees in comparison with the younger employees. Some reviews of research on this issue have concluded no relationship between age and job performance (Salthouse and Maurer, 1996; Warr and Pennington, 1994). However, some reviews have generally concluded that the effects of age on job performance are slight (Warr and Pennington, 1994). Long and Swortzelow (2007) reported a positive correlation between age of agricultural extension workers and work performance (r = 0.23). While McEvoy and Cascio (1989) indicated that age and productivity were unrelated (r = 0.07). Therefore, understanding age-productivity profiles is of vital importance in several areas of psychology, human resources and economic research. A large body of evidence supports the notion that cognitive abilities decline from some stage in adulthood. Verhaegen and Salthouse (1997) reported a meta-analysis of 91 studies, which investigated how mental abilities develop over the lifespan. On the basis of these studies, they concluded that the cognitive abilities, reasoning, speed and episodic memory declines significantly before 50 years of age and more thereafter. The decline of mental abilities from early adulthood is a universal phenomenon. The age-induced changes in cognitive abilities are similar across countries and within population subgroups, such as between men and women (Park, Nisbett, and Hedden 1999). Furthermore, individuals with high and low ability levels are subject to the same age-induced changes in cognitive functioning (Deary, Whalley, Lemmon, Crawford and Starr 2000). In spite of the seemingly unavoidable reductions in cognitive abilities, targeted training programmes seem effective in softening, or halting age-related decline. Schaie and Willis (1986a, 1986b) reported that such programmes can stabilize or even reverse age-specific declines in inductive reasoning and spatial orientation among many individuals. Ball, Berch, Helmers, Jobe, Leveck, Marsiske, Morris, Rebok, Smith, Tennstedt, Unverzagt, Willis (2002) found that exercising speed, reasoning and memory abilities enhance the functional level of those who undergo training relative to those who do not. Further, the relative demand for work tasks that involve certain cognitive abilities have shifted asymmetrically over recent decades. The demand for interactive skills, which are abilities that are relatively stable over the life cycle, has increased more than the demand for mathematical aptitude, which declines substantially by age (Autor, Levy and Murnane 2003). This could suggest that older workers are getting relatively more productive over time. However, any decreases in the labour market value of long experience, is likely to have an even stronger importance on the relative performance of older and younger workers. Salthouse (1984) gives an example of a profession where experience can alleviate the impact of cognitive reductions. Salthouse reported that older typewriters employees work as effectively as their younger counterparts, despite lower speed, since they use more efficient work strategies. The productivity profile may change over time given structural changes in the labour market. Accelerating technological progress can increase the importance of being able to learn and to adjust to new ways of working, while a long work experience 321
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Volume 4 Issue 3 (October 2012) - Ozean Publications

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