Occupational stress and assertiveness in administrative and production workers

Occupational stress is the most common and most important type of stress people are exposed to in modern society. The nature of the working process itself is transformed almost on a daily basis, which affects the physiological condition of nearly all workers. This is why it is becoming increasingly important to investigate the relationship dynamics between man's capacity to overcome stress, including the occupational kind, on the one hand, and the capacity to possess optimal communication skills, such as assertiveness, on the other. This relationship is particularly at risk in work organizations in transitional social systems, like the Serbian one over the past ten years. The basic goal of this research was to determine the existence and the differences in the proneness to stress, the level of occupational stress and assertiveness between administrative workers and production workers employed in the Factory of Copper Pipes in Majdanpek. The group of administrative workers consisted of 50 workers and it was compared with the same number of workers employed in the production process, bearing in mind the differences in gender, and the length of employment. The results confirmed the expectation that there would be differences between these two groups of employees on the basis of the examined variables, as well as that work experience represents a statistically significant factor in professional stress.