It gave us the immense pleasure to work on the project of the

subject People and Organizations. Our research project was

quite interesting and informative. We came across the practical
aspects

within

an

organization,

including

the

work

environment, culture of job holders and their needs. For the

same very project, we conducted the research for the issue that
is taking place in Fauji Fertilizer Company Limited. We are
thankful to our respected teacher Dr. Bashir Ahmed, who did
not only teach us the tactic of conducting a research, rather
also built confidence inside us to analyze the organizational
problems and issues.

Table of Contents

Introduction

...

3, 4

Problem Statement & Research Question

Literature Review

...

6, 7

Data Collection

...

Theoretical Framework & Analysis

..

9, 10

Conclusion & Answer to Research Question

..

11

Introduction
Fauji Fertilizer Company is one of the leading companies in the fertilizer sector. It was
incorporated in 1978 and the initial share capital of the company was 813.9 million rupees. The
present share capital stands above 8.48 billion. The company has more than 8.3 billion as longterm investments. FFC is a public company listed on all three stock exchanges of Pakistan. The
company is headquartered in Rawalpindi with a Marketing office at Lahore and manufacturing
plants at Goth Macchi and Mirpur Mathelo. FFC is engaged in activities of manufacturing and
marketing of fertilizers in Pakistan. FFC commenced commercial production of urea in 1982.
FFC participated as major shareholders in a new DAP/Urea manufacturing complex with
participation of major international/national institutions.
Though, FFC has an excellent reputation in the market and it is enlisted in the top ten companies
of Pakistan, anyhow there is a problem that exists in the company. There are two employment
levels in FFC. One is officer level and the other one is staff level. The officer level includes
the management trainees, managers, executives, general managers and the board of directors.
The staff level includes all the clerks, senior clerks, operators, drivers, security staff etc. The
nature of problem is that the staff level employees are discriminated and they are not getting the
required rights. The salary packages of staff level employees are quite lower than the officers.
They demand personal benefits from the company, like full medical insurance, insurance for
their vehicles, increase in the wages and employment opportunities for their children. In FFC, in
the shape of incentives, cash bonuses are announced for the officers quarterly. The amount of
bonuses is quite handsome. Likewise, the staff level employees get the benefit of bonuses semiannually. It has been personally observed that the employment opportunity for the officers
children is high whereas there is very less ratio of the children of staff employees who are
working in FFC. The medical expenses for the staff employees are limited and the insurance for
vehicles are not provided for them, as for the officers. Although, there are many employees
working as staff level in FFC, who are much qualified and experienced. But due to some or the
other reasons, they are not recruited in the officer level. Considering the issues, all the staff level
employees developed a union and named it as Sona. In the organization, these employees are
addressed as sona employees and the officers are known as to be FFC employees.

The sona employees have distinguished organization identity cards in which a logo of sona in
printed rather than FFC. The sona employees often protest and observe strikes in the
organization for the sake of resolving their issues. The employees categorized in staff level are
not having job security too. Employees performance is dependent on stress and psychological
abuse. Mostly, in stress, the sona employees refuse to take responsibility, quickly get irritated
and the overall performance deteriorates. On the other hand, the exploitation of labor rights
increases dissatisfaction and the employees become unable to deliver his best, which increases
propensity to leave the job. Constructive stress can create encouragement among employees and
helps them to tackle various job challenges, for instance bonus will be allotted if the employees
meet the dead line. The dead line pressure will encourage them to perform efficiently. If the
stress becomes too high and it crosses the constructive level, it turns into a damaging force. Job
performance will begin to decline with the interference of stress to employees ability to cope
with the situation, fails to make decision and displays inconsistent behavior. Though, they work
in the organization with sincerity and loyalty and they are having good interpersonal relations
with the FFC employees but even then due to the problems they are facing, their work
productivity and the efficiency are influenced. Due to the factors, the sona employees are facing
stress and suffering from psychological abuse. Due to this stress, the work performance,
motivational level and the turnover rate has been influenced. The CEO of FFC, Gen. Khalid
Naeem Lodhi has chaired several board of directors meetings for the resolution of the issues, but
still the issues are complex and have not been resolved yet.

Problem Statement & Research Question

The problem that we picked up in our research study is the negativity in performance that is
caused by stress and workplace abuse and the negligence of the positive aspects associated with
it. The base level needs of the staff employees of FFC are not fulfilled, therefore it is observed
that the employees are unprovoked and in the state of stress; which influences their work
productivity and performance. We chose our research questions after the collection of data and
taking the views of some staff level employees of FFC. Some of the research questions that we
developed on the basis of dependent variables are mentioned below:
1: How stress and psychological abuse affect the employees performance in an
organization?
2: How employees respond to job insecurity?
3: How the labor issues could be resolved in an organization?

Literature Review
Introduction
Stress is the universal in nature and people from every walk of life have to face stress. Nearly, all
organizations are planning to overlook the stress and psychological contributions to lower job
performance and productivity originating from dissatisfaction, high turnover and work load.
Stress is a personal experience created by pressure or the individual demand causing an impact
on the persons ability to cope with the situation (Blaug, 2005). The first theory on stress was
presented by freud (1978), who considered stress as the result of discharge energy either due to
external factors or internal obstacles. In 1960, the approach was considered which stated that
when the individual is not capable to meet the demands of certain situations, these situations in
return affect the individual health. Mostly the reasons behind it are incompatibility of an
employee to meet the demands of the job (Kenyon, 2005). Abuse incorporates many perspectives
ranging from psychical restraint to mental torture and to exploitation of resources. Exploiting an
employees rights by not communicating him accurate and comprehensive information regarding
the options he have to avoid and handle it (Duggan et al, 1998). There are two possibilities one is
when an employee takes stress he finds it difficult to perform with the best of his skills and other
is an employee enjoys working in stressful situation and delivers best to the interest of the firm.
On the other side, abuse has negative correlation with the employees productivity.

Stress, its causes and impact analysis

The causes viewed by the management that contributes to stress are inability to control the work
environment, low acceptance for the work done, lack of empowerment, rigid organizational
structure, lack of appreciation and monetary rewards and unpredictable job environment (Subha,
2009).

Viewpoint of other researchers

The lack of control over the work environment, low acceptance for the work done, rigid
organizational structure, high unpredictability in job, variations of tasks in different departments,
administration support, inadequate monetary reward and personal issues are the causes of high
stress level which ultimately affects the job performance negatively (Imtiaz, 2007).
The concern shown by the senior management regarding the employees performance is mainly
due to low productivity level caused by the increased intensity of stress and psychological abuse.
Effective management needs to be practiced among the managers otherwise the potential of
efficient employees can be wasted causing high threat to the organizational goals and lowering
overall performance. Stress management issues like counseling are unexplored options for
organizational management in Pakistan which can be employed along with monetary, non
monetary and structural reforms by the management to effectively manage the stress and retain
high performance of employee by lowering their turnover and dissatisfaction (Ahmad, 2003).
The employees responded to this situation in such a way that they have expressed that the
organizations do not show concern for the employees due to which in return employees do not
find any reason of being associated with the same organization. The victims of psychological
abuse and stress were of age brackets 26-35 years. The organizational misfit, no empowerment to
take decisions, lack of control over the environment, personality traits and lack of relaxation and
strict imposition of rules can affect the employees performance (Meneze, 2005).

Data Collection
We used deductive approach to conduct our research. We conducted the quantitative approach by
basically using questionnaires as data collection technique and also conducted face-to-face
interview with the president of sona union. We did not interview the other sona employees as we
perceived that an interview with the employees would create hindrance and reluctance of sharing
their views in front of management. We took the questionnaires along and got it filled by 20
employees of FFC. Our target remained the staff level employees, as they are less authorized to
take decisions and are bound to follow orders and they are already suffering from stress. As the
results cannot be generalized for all the employees of one organization but this has clearly
defined the culture that is prevailing in FFC. The reason behind the selection of sona employees
as target is to ensure credibility that the views will be given with honesty.
The questionnaire designed is not lengthy and has only twelve questions featuring different
themes and it could be filled out within five minutes. Though, the understanding of the
questionnaires for the staff employees was difficult for them so we helped them to fill the
questionnaires by illustrating each question in simple words. The response of the employees has
remained confidential with us, as only used for our educational research purpose and has not
been shared with other employees or disclosed by adding response with the title name and the
organization.

Theoretical Framework & Analysis

STRESS

JOB INSECURITY

Employees
performance

LABOR ISSUES

The employees performance is dependent on all the above mentioned factors/variables. If the
sona employees face stress, feel job insecurity and have issues regarding their rights and
privileges, their work productivity and efficiency in work would get affected. After collecting the
data, we came across certain facts that are related with the above variables and their details are
given below:
Stress Due to overall discrimination among the staff and officers, rigid environment for staff
employees and the indecisive action for the employees problems
Job insecurity As the sona employees are mostly inducted on the contract basis so they feel
job insecurity. And secondly the employees feel job insecurity as they get uncertain about the
circumstances after the protests.
Labor issues The overall benefits, privileges and incentives the sona employees demand.

We came to know that the turnover rate among the sona employees is high. We also analyzed
that if the wages and the incentives of sona employees are increased, they may get adjusted in the
organization with positive goals and motivation.
Being business students, this topic has the implication in a way that when we would enter the
practical fields, we would have awareness regarding the factors i.e. inability to control work
environment, lack of appreciation and monetary rewards, exploitation of labor rights and
unpredictable job environment that create stress among the employees. This would help us by
developing action plan for responding to these factors, so that it does not affect the
organizational performance in a negative way.

10

Conclusion and Answer to the Research Question

The base of all the problems is the labor rights that led the sona employees to suffer
from stress and feel job insecurity. Through this, their work productivity and performance
get decreased.

As mentioned, the staff employees feel insecure regarding the jobs as they are inducted
on contract basis rather than a permanent job. Similarly, the turnover of employees takes
place if they find some other job having high packages/benefits than FFC.

The management of FFC should consider the fact that employees are the assets of the
organization. As FFC generates very high revenues and is considered to be the highest
tax payer among all the companies in Pakistan, so the wages of the sona employees
should be increased considerably. The procedure of announcing bonuses for the staff
employees should be balanced with the officer level in order to eliminate the
discrimination.

The CEO should behave as internally directed and resolve the issue after fulfilling the
demands of sona employees gradually. For this purpose, meetings for negotiation
between the senior managers and the president of sona along with some representatives
of sona union should be arranged.

Instead of conflict and negation of responsibility, the managers of FFC should promote a
culture, in which the staff employees could easily share the issue they face in the
organization. For this purpose, corner meetings may be arranged.

The job insecurity does not only add force to the employees of actively participating of
staying ahead of each other, rather it also compels them to search for other jobs. If the
employees of FFC are satisfied, this feeling would automatically charge them up to act
for the best interest of the organization.

11