Directors' stress in day care centers: related factors and coping strategies

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims to explore what causes stress to day care center directors and what their coping strategies are. In addition, the study examined the extent to which directors experience work-related stress and burnout, and the factors associated with their work-related stress, engagement and recovery from work.Design/methodology/approachA mixed method approach was used.FindingsThe results showed that the main sources of directors' stress were connected to leading oneself, leading others, managing change and lack of social support. Moreover, the main coping strategies with stress were leading oneself, social support and leading others. In addition, both pre- and in-service leadership training played a significant role in the experience of stress. The nature of factors causing stress and coping strategies with stress may imply that directors need further support in self-management and developing their internal competences.Research limitations/implicationsThe present study has limitations that need to be considered when making generalizations. First, a small sample size limits the generalization of the findings. Second, the study relied solely on one source of information, i.e. directors' self-reports. Third, data were collected only at one time point at the end of the year when stress levels might have accumulated. Finally, the study has been done in the Finnish educational context where day care center directors' job description varies depending on municipality.Practical implicationsThe findings provide important information about the causes of directors' work-related stress as well as their coping strategies and about factors that might be related to those.Social implicationsBecause directors' stress impact on children’s development and well-being through teachers' well-being, it is crucial to pay attention on directors' well-being and provide more support for them.Originality/valueThe current study is among the few ones focusing on the stress of directors at early childhood education (ECE) settings.

Antecedents and Consequences of Work Stress Behavior

“…Relationships in the organization are a source of work stress. In the literature study conducted by the author, the antecedents of work stress are related to relationships in organizations including organizational structure (Naoum et al, 2018), leadership (Elomaa et al, 2020;Manoppo, 2020;Paeveen and Adeinant, 2019;Yao et al, 2020), social support (Bjaalid, 2020;Foy et al, 2018;Yousaf et al, 2020), communication and management support (Pandey, 2020;Sahni, 2020), culture high power distance (Hampton et al, 2019;Oruh et al, 2020), autonomy (Patel and Wolfe, 2019) and work team coordination (Hampton et al, 2019).…”

“…Observations show that research on work stress is carried out in the construction professional profession (Ajayi et al, 2019;Hampton et al, 2019;Naoum et al, 2018), the police (Allison et al, 2019;Li et al, 2018;Nisar and Rasheed, 2019), teachers and headmaster (Heyder, 2019;Hu et al, 2019;Kongcharoen et al, 2019;Walker, 2020), Paramedics (Bjaalid, 2020;Duschek et al, 2019;Klein et al, 2019;Manoppo, 2020;Park et al, 2020;Rasool et al, 2020;Saadeh and Suifan, 2020;Zaghini et al, 2020), hotel industry employees (Goswani et al, 2019;Yousaf et al, 2020) and banking industry employees (Darte-Baah, 2019;Kashif et al, 2017;Oruh et al, 2020;Pandey, 2020;Parveen and Adeinat, 2019;Tripathi and Bharadwaja, 2018;Wu, 2020;). Some professions are only studied by one researcher, for example in the profession of daycare leader (Elomaa et al, 2020), library staff (Petek, 2018), the salesperson (Peaslay et al, 2020), women micro-entrepreneurs (Wijewardena et al., 2020), auditors (Amirudin, 2019), immigration officers (Yang et al, 2019), employees in the electricity sector (Sidhu et al, 2020), lecturers (Rafida, 2020), cabin crewmembers (Hu et al, 2017) and sales agents…”

Early childhood centre directors coping with stress: firefighters and oracles

“…Despite the fact that there is some research on early childhood professionals' work-related stress (e.g. Cooper et al, 1988;Elomaa et al, 2020;Gjerustad et al, 2020;Iriarte Red ın and Erro-Garc es, 2020;Løvgren, 2016;Nislin et al, 2016;Tsai et al, 2006), there seems to be scarce research on work-related stress from centre directors' perspectives and how they cope with these stressors (Jones et al, 2019). Yet directors have to improve and sustain quality in a time of extensive policy changes that have influenced their work (OECD, 2020).…”

“…The transactional framework is useful and continues to serve as a valuable framework in the ECE setting (e.g. Bøe et al, 2020;Elomaa et al, 2020).…”

“…Tangible support involves direct aid and practical help in the everyday situation, including having enough and updated computers. Research in the field of sport on younger and older athletes revealed that all athletes use emotional-focussed strategies, but older and more experienced persons also use a variety of problem-focussed coping strategies and social support (Elomaa et al, 2020;Kristiansen and Roberts, 2011). Having a wider coping repertoire is generally considered adaptive, and Lazarus and Folkman argue that a person is resourceful when he/she has "many resources and/or is clever in finding ways of using them to counter demands" (1984, p. 158).…”