CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the study
In today‟s technological and moving business world, significant and growing percentage of the population work in formal organizations (Heller and Hindle, 1988). People work under a broad array of conditions. While many of these people work indoors, others work outside. Some of these jobs require exposure to intense heat, cold and/ or noise. Hence, while some of these jobs involve high risk injury or illness, others carry low risks. The average working time in the civil service, public and/or private sector encompasses a major part of the individual‟s life span and occupies a period when physical and mental capacities are fully utilized. Organizations are constantly evolving and the nature of the services provided necessitates differential work schedules.
Here in Nigeria, not all the employees in different organizations do perform the usual 8am to 4pm – five days – a week. Police officers, military personnel, fire fighters, prison warder, nurses, telephone operators among others, do provide 24-hours – a – day service. Muchinsky (1997), posits that in industrial manufacturing companies, some technologies/machine require constant monitoring and operation. Hence, it becomes rational and practical to run these machines continually by having different shift work systems round the clock. He notes further that there are no uniform shift hours, as various companies adopt different shifts.
Usually for nurses, a 24-hour-a-day is broken into three 8-hour- work shifts as follows:
i. 7am to 2pm (day shift):
ii. 2pm to 10pm (swing or afternoon shift)‟ and
iii. 10pm to 7am (night shift).
Muchinsky finally observes that some companies have employees run only one shift, more so, as workers generally do not like the afternoon and night shift. Consequently, many firms and organizations do rotate the shift on weekly basis so as to carry all the workers along. Psychologists in industrial settings (Muchinsky, 1988), did and still do investigate the degree to which workers‟ job satisfactions are affected by the shift work, and their abilities to cope with these changes in work schedules.
Since it is the functions of the Nigeria Police Force to maintain internal security here in Nigeria, enforce the laws and orders of the law abiding citizens, arrest, investigate and charge/or prosecute all the offenders in law courts; the police had since adopted three shift work schedules covering from Sunday to
Saturday of every week. In order to cover all these duties and police the country effectively, Udonsy 91976), outlines the shift work schedules in this organization as follows:
(a) Morning shift, from 0600 hrs to 1400 hours;
(b) Afternoon shift, 1400 to 2200 hours; and
(c) Night shift. 2200 hours to 0600 hours.
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INFLUENCE OF SHIFT WORK AND OCCUPATIONAL STRESS ON JOB SATISFACTION AMONG POLICE
