Relationship between Work-Family Conflict and Work Stress among Del Monte Kenya Ltd Workers in Murang’a County, Kenya

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to establish if there was a relationship between work-family conflict and work stress among Del Monte workers in Murang’a County. The research objectives were; to assess the level of work stress; to establish the work-family conflict; and to evaluate whether there was a relationship between work-family conflict and work stress. On theoretical framework, B.F. Skinner behavioral theory was adopted. For the research methodology, a mixed research design was employed where both descriptive and correlational design was considered. The targeted participants were 132 workers sampled based on stratified sampling on the departmental levels and purposive sampling for the respondents within each department, namely Finance and Internal Audit, Production, Agriculture, Sales and Marketing, Human Resource, and Security departments. The results of the study indicated an overall moderate level of work stress (M = 61%, SD = 16.73) caused by having a lot of work responsibility, lack of appreciation and acknowledgement, discrimination, conflict with superiors, coworkers or customers. On the work-family conflict, the variable was measured in two levels which were family-work sub-scale and work-family sub-scale. The result revealed a moderate score of work-family conflict (M= 44.29%, SD = 20.37). However, moderate levels of work-family conflict sub-scale where about 49% accepted that their work prevented them from spending sufficient quality time with family and almost similar percentage expressed that their leisure time was inadequate. On the last objective, findings showed that there was significantly moderate strong relationship between work-family conflict and work stress (r=0.351, p < 0.05). Consequently, this study recommended that appraisal and work promotions should be provided to workers as motivation, in addition to support programs.