Assessing the Impact of Work Stress on the Performance of the Palestinian Transportation Ministry’s Staff in West Bank

The Ministry of Transportation (MOT) is one of the important and dynamic public service ministries in Palestine. Because MOT serves a huge number of citizens, whom have high expectations about services quality, it is seeking to improve their services quality through studying the factors, which affect the staff's performance. Stress seems to be the most important factor that affects the performance of staff in workplace. It is defined as a natural response during any work or any external situation in life of human beings, it is not necessary the worst case; it may have a positive effect when it motivates the staff to adapt and improve their performance. This research aimed to assess the impact of work stress on the performance of the Palestinian Transportation Ministry’s Staff in West Bank. For the purpose of this research, descriptive analytic research method was used. The research sample was calculated, using Thompson equation, (2002). The researcher had distributed 270 questionnaires, which constitutes about 56% of all MOT's staff. The 223 questionnaires recovered from total distributed questionnaires, which constitutes about 83% of all distributed questionnaires. This research found that the performance evaluation system, career path, work environment, technology and external work stress are stress factors and have an impact on the MOT's staff performance. The results show that there is statistically significant relation between these fields and staff’s performance. This research recommended that MOT should organize strategies to improve work environment, and develop technology, so that will improve staff performance. MOT should organize training courses to improve knowledge and information about MOT's work procedures, policies and rules, so that staff will have clear responsibilities, clear accountabilities and clear job tasks. In addition, MOT needs to support and help its staff to avoid and isolate external environment from work environment to reduce external work stress.