ICT SUPPORTED OCCUPATIONAL STRESS MANAGEMENT: THE VIEWS OF HR MANAGERS IN SRI LANKAN SOFTWARE COMPANIES

The software industry is considered to be a growing industry worldwide but with a high propensity to cause stress reactions among employees due to its demanding and technology-driven nature. As a human capital-intensive industry, too much of stress on employees can also create a negative impact on the quality of work. Thus, organizations take numerous initiatives at both individual and organizational levels to address this problem. One area of concern is the use of ICT supported occupational stress management interventions. In Sri Lanka, the dominant ICT occupation today is software engineer, and there is a national awareness of mental health issues due to occupational stress. Thus this study aims to investigate current practices used to frame employees’ well-being inside software organizations in Sri Lanka, and to understand Sri Lankan software companies’ viewpoints of using ICT supported occupational stress management interventions through the lens of human resource (HR) managers. Ten HR managers were interviewed covering eight software companies. Through thematic analysis, we identified three main themes and multiple subthemes. Results revealed various types of individual level and organizational level strategies, policies and practices implemented to create a healthy work setting for the employees. Findings also show that the HR managers had limited knowledge and experiences of ICT supported occupational stress management interventions. Nevertheless, they appreciated the immediate possible benefits of ICT interventions and demonstrated the willingness to adopt them in their organizations. Moreover, they revealed several functional requirements and feature sets they would like to see in such applications to better support their employees. Therefore, this study can possibly provide insights for researchers and practitioners who are to design and develop ICT supported interventions to manage occupational stress, to promote well-being and healthy organizations.