The Impact of Government Bureaucracy System Change towards

Staff Anxiety

Moses Glorino Rumambo Pandin

and Sri Rahayunignsih

English Department, Faculty of Humanities Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Postgraduate Psychology, University of 17 Agustus 1945 Surabaya, Indonesia

Keywords: government, anxiety, bureaucracy system change

Abstract: The consequence of local government organizational system change is causing psychological anxiety

among the staff. The focus of research is to examine the staff anxiety in organizational changes. By

applying a quantitative method, the research investigated 108 subjects from a local government office. The

research used a purposive sampling method and applied descriptive analysis to research data. Based on the

analysis results, it is found that the consequences of the uncertainty of organizational change caused the

discomfort of the staff, which was brought about by anxiety. There are four dimensions of anxiety:

cognitive, motoric, neuro-physic, and affective. The staff who have the administrative positions experience

more anxiety than other staff without it. The ability to overcome this anxiety needs to be improved such as

through adversity intelligence - that is the competence to face difficulties.

1 INTRODUCTION

A clean government, free from corruption, collusion

and nepotism and realizing people's welfare is the

goal of the whole government. Changes needed to

achieve these conditions may include areas such as

changes in organizational aspects, legislation, human

resources management, oversight, accountability,

public service, mind-set and work culture. Changes

in various areas are a form of government

commitment to realize good governance,

professionalism, integrity, and being servants of

society and nation.

Based on Government Regulation No. 74/2012

on the Amendment to Government Regulation No.

23/2005 on Financial Management, the Public

Service Agency was formed to provide services to

the public in the form of providing goods and or

services sold without prioritizing the profit, and

activities are based on the principles of efficiency

and productivity. Under this rule every Public

Service Agency is encouraged to apply sound

business practices based on management principles

in order to realize good governance in enhancing

transparency and accountability of state financial

management. This change implements a new system

and administrative culture in the management of

human resources by demanding changes in the way

people work and adjusting individual competencies.

The consequence of such changes is the rotation and

mutation of employees at each level of the work

unit. There are employees who perceive this

organizational change as one way to achieve good

governance, but there are also others who believe

that the changes that occur invite an atmosphere of

uncertainty and discomfort at work for him/her. The

establishment and comfort of the work environment

are strong reasons for some to resist organizational

change.

Inspired by Cummings and Worley (2005), Lubis

(2009), Baron and Greenberg (2011) a preliminary

study was conducted through the Elicitation

Questionnaire, with 15 respondents as sampling. The

preliminary study found that 60% of the sample felt

anxious about the current situation. The question

that arises is why the anxiety occurs in 60% of these

employees. Why do 20% of subjects feel normal,

and 20% of other subjects even feel optimistic?

What makes them optimistic? What makes them feel

normal? Based on these questions, the researchers

wanted to know the relationship between changes in

the local government bureaucracy and anxiety. It is

expected that this result will provide significant

input and consideration for local government to take

strategic steps through policies related to employee

anxiety.

Pandin, M. and Rahayuningsih, S.

The Impact of Government Bureaucracy System Change towards Staff Anxiety.

DOI: 10.5220/0007537500650069

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School (ICPS 2018), pages 65-69

ISBN: 978-989-758-348-3

2 LITERARY REVIEW

Anxiety is a term which describes a psychological

disorder that can have characteristics of fear,

concern for the future, prolonged anxiety, and

nervousness. Anxiety is common to everyone.

Anxiety is called a psychological disorder when it

prevents a person from living their daily life and

undergoing productive activities.

2.1 Anxiety

Anxiety is defined as the tension, insecurity, and

stress arising from the perceived unpleasantness of

the event but its source is largely unknown and

originating from within. Anxiety can be defined as a

state of feelings of concern, stress, uncertainty, or

fear of the fact or perception of threats of an

unknown or known actual source (Stuart and

Sundeens, 1998). Anxiety is a non-specific symptom

that is often found and is often a normal emotion.

Anxiety is also often interpreted as a response to a

threat whose source is unknown, internal, vague or

conflictual (Kaplan, 1997). Anxiety is an individual

response to an unpleasant situation and is

experienced by all living things in everyday life.

Anxiety is an emotional response without a specific

object that is subjectively experienced and

communicated interpersonally. Anxiety is confusion,

anxiety about something that will happen with

unclear causes and associated with feelings of

uncertainty and helplessness (Suliswati, 2005).

Anxiety is related to feelings of uncertainty and

helplessness. This state of emotion has no specific

object. It differs from fear, which is an intellectual

assessment of something dangerous. Anxiety is a

state in which an individual experiences stress and

activation of the autonomic nervous system in

responding to unclear, non-specific threats. A person

with anxiety cannot identify a threat. Anxiety can

occur without fear but fear does not usually occur

without anxiety (Capernito, 1999).

2.2 First Section

Government staff may be defined as government

employees with employment agreements appointed

by personnel officers and assigned duties in a

government office or assigned other state duties and

paid based on laws and regulations. Among

government organizations both at the central level

and the work area requires the completion of general

tasks of government and development of tasks

quickly, efficiently and effectively. Professional

staff are needed in assisting the leadership so that the

job tasks in every government organization can run

smoothly according to government and community

expectations.

Anxiety can happen to anyone, including the

staff. Anxiety will create an unpleasant feeling.

Unpleasant feelings and anxiety come from feeling

something will happen to the staff. This is due to the

organizational change in the budgeting management

system that previously budgeted based on the

Regional Revenue Budget to the Management of the

Public Service Agency Finance system.

The fundamental change in the Public Service

Agency Management system is that all staff are

required to innovate and enter into the

entrepreneurial spirit, so that the target of the

planned action can be achieved. If the revenue target

is not achieved then the performance allowances

received by the staff will be reduced. This creates an

atmosphere of uncertainty. The existence of

uncertainty in the process of change and a negative

expectation of the output of this change is what

causes anxiety among the staff.

Anxiety experienced by the staff will cause

disturbances - physical and emotional disturbances,

so that if the anxiety is not addressed properly it can

have a negative impact on the performance of these

staff. Staff anxiety in dealing with the Public Service

Agency governance change system is caused when

staff are required to change the mind-set that with

Public Service Agency pattern performance

allowance must be obtained independently. Changes

in the mind-set of the staff depend on the ability of

each staff member to respond to changes that occur.

In this study, the outline of anxiety used refers to

the previous explanation of unpleasant feelings that

are subjective and arise because of the tension, the

threat of failure, the feelings of discomfort and

uncertainty. Anxiety reactions can be manifested in

physical reactions, such as increased heart rate,

frequent urination, excessive sweating, going back

and forth and indigestion, while the psychic reaction

is tension, panic, worry, nervousness, fear and

anxiety. The anxiety caused by the changing

demands of staff thinking also depends on the

personality type of the staff. Departing from the

assumption that each person behaves according to

his or her character, it is said that one's personality

can also be reflected in the work environment, and

these characteristics can directly or indirectly

influence work behaviours. If a person works in

harmony with his personality, then it can be said that

the person will be able to achieve satisfaction so that

his performance can run optimally. People choose

ICPS 2018 - 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School

the work and working atmosphere they want, so as

to reduce the variability of individuals in pursuing a

particular job. When the job situation is

commensurate with personality traits, it is likely that

the individual is motivated to perform well (Heber

and Runyon, 1984; Robert & Hogan, 2001; Cunha,

2003). Staff anxiety in facing challenges can be

caused by many factors that cannot be separated

from the conditions related to the physical

environment, tasks faced, organizational structure

and climate, and interpersonal relationships.

Based on the theoretical studies presented earlier,

the researcher proposed a hypothesis: there is a

relationship between bureaucratic system changes

and psychological anxiety.

3 METHOD

The subject research involves employees at various

levels of administrative and functional positions.

Subjects in this study totalled 138 employees with

details: 30 subjects were used as the initial research

subjects for trial measuring instruments and 108

people for the actual research data. The sampling

technique used was a purposive sampling method by

taking each subject proportionally based on number

of employees who fall into that category.

Operational definition of anxiety used is a

subjective feeling of unpleasantness that is

subjective and arises because of the tension, the

threat of failure, the feelings of discomfort and

uncertainty. Anxiety reactions can be manifested in

physical reactions, such as increased heart rate,

frequent urination, excessive sweating, going back

and forth and indigestion, while the psychic reaction

is tension, panic, worry, nervousness, fear and

anxiety. Anxiety scale was based on the Taylor

Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS Scale), which has

been adapted into Indonesian language. The

measuring tool of this study uses a modified Likert

Scale with 4 choices of statement answers.

The results of the validity and reliability test of

the anxiety gauge are as follows: after try-out test on

30 people with 3 rounds, yielding 16 valid items

from 40 tested items, Cronbach Alpha R = 0.906 and

P <0.01. The result of validity and reliability test of

items of anxiety measuring instrument has a strong

discrimination with discrimination power 0,306 -

0,836 (p <0, 01 - P <0, 05), SD = 7,542, 16 items.

The assumption test uses the data distribution

normality test, and the linearity test using one-

sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test resulting in the

three tools meeting the normality norms. Normality

test on gauge normality test on anxiety gauge yields

absolute value D = 0.125, p> 0, 05. (See Table 1).

Table 1: The Normality Test Results

Anxiety

108

Normal Parameters

a,b

Mean

31,463

Std.

Deviation

6,68298

Most Extreme

Differences

Absolute

0,125

Positive

0,121

Negative

-0,125

Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z

1,295

Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)

0,07

4 RESULTS & DISCUSSION

4.1 Results

Based on the data of research subjects, it is known

that the age of research subjects ranged from 60

years to 22 years. Mainly the age of the respondents

ranged from 40 to 50 years. Based on the last

education, the subjects of the study were Bachelor of

stratum 1 and stratum 2, whereas for the sexes it

showed that the majority of subjects were males

(72), while female subjects amounted to 36. The

subjects of the study showed a work range of 2 to 35

years, where most of the study subjects had a

working period of 20-30 years. The education

ranged from junior high, high school, diploma,

undergraduate (S1), master (S2) and Ph.D (S3).

Most of the last subjects studied are at S2 and S1

level reaching 76.8% of the total research subjects,

followed by the last education junior high/high

school, Ph.D. and diploma.

Figure 1: The anxiety dimensions results

The Impact of Government Bureaucracy System Change towards Staff Anxiety

Based on data processing of anxiety, most

dominant subjects have low anxiety (62, 57%),

followed by research subjects with anxiety average

(20%), very low (19%), high (4%). None of the

study subjects showed an extremely high anxiety

category (0%). However, if examined in detail for

aspects of anxiety, then the result show a graph

depicting cognitive anxiety aspect showing the

number of moves from the largest to the smallest

with exposure to aspects of cognitive (see Figure 1).

4.2 Discussion

Cognitive anxiety: Cognitively only 14% of subjects

experience high cognitive anxiety while the rest

perceive organizational changes with an average of

even 44% without excessive anxiety. Subjects are

not worried or panicked, and are able to continue to

concentrate and make decisions. This condition

occurs because of the smooth communication

system, socialization by the vigorous leadership so

that the changes that will occur and this does not

cause cognitive anxiety.

Although there is no significance of anxiety in

the cognitive dimension, based on data analysis,

motorically subjects experience high anxiety where

subjects often convey that subjects sometimes show

irregular, shaky movements. The individual also

often exhibits some restless behaviour, stepping

back and forth, biting lips and nails. This is indicated

by the percentage of high and very high reaching

35%, followed by 32%, and low and very low 33%.

Changes in the Public Service Agency processing

system resulted in motoric anxiety. It can happen

that this system prioritizes system changes that

require motion of motors where more subjects are

required to work efficiently and effectively.

The subjects suffered from neuro-physic anxiety

with very high and high performance of 31% of the

total subjects. In the condition of the staff, there is a

neuro-physic anxiety with a change in the autonomic

nervous system which is often reflected in the form

of wheezing, dry mouth, hands and feet become

cold, frequent urination, heart palpitations, increased

blood pressure, sweating excessively, muscle tension

and indigestion. This anxiety is in line with the test

for motoric anxiety. Organizational change is most

correlated with affective anxiety. Over 50% of

subjects experience feeling uneasy and worried

about the dangers in the future.

Changes in the organizational system bring civic

disturbance and threats to the existing status quo for

staff who have positions within the organization.

Some employees have anxiety, more so staff

employees who have structural positions at this time.

With the change of the Public Service Agency in

East Java government, structural positions no longer

take into account of the length of work and seniority

but how capable officials can contribute to the work

unit and the fulfilment of targets that support office

leaders and the target of East Java Head of Region.

Implementation of organizational change in

terms of budget management based on the Public

Service Agency system, which requires a change in

the way of work and the adjustment of skills, of

course, leads to a situation of uncertainty for staff.

The height of uncertainty as a consequence of the

process of change affects the expectations of output

on change in a way that causes anxiety. The

psychological anxiety dimension that is more

influential on staff is affective and emotion,

followed by aspects of physic and motoric

dimension and cognitive.

These findings are supported by those of several

experts who found relationships directly or

indirectly in the dimensions of anxiety (Leutner et

al., 2014; Simona et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2014). Of

course, the dimensions of staff anxiety in facing

organizational change are influenced by

organizational culture and intelligence against the

challenges or character of the staff personality itself.

5 CONCLUSION

Local government system changes, especially in the

Public Service Agency, are inevitable.

Organizational changes and systems in it mainly

affect and produce anxiety - affective or emotion

anxiety, motor anxiety and neuro-physic anxiety.

Affective anxiety occurs because organizational

change brings inconvenience to staff and brings with

it a lot of work agenda so it appears on affective and

motoric anxiety. This anxiety can be reduced by the

ability to survive in the face of organizational

change.

Limitations of the study: this study only looked

at four dimensions in one aspect of anxiety. This

research can be improved by expanding the existing

research variables.

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The Impact of Government Bureaucracy System Change towards Staff Anxiety