Hazel Jade E Villamar, Ramezesh E Dionisio
Over the years, occupational stress has escalated progressively. Occupational or work-related stress is the response of employees when presented with complicated work demands and pressures. Meanwhile, coping strategies, a series of action taken or done by an individual to at least overcome or overlook stress, plays an important role in alleviating the emergence ofsuch psychological distress at work. This study assessed the occupational stressors and copingstrategies of frontline workers in selected supermarkets located in the San Jose City, Nueva Ecija during the COVID-19 pandemic. The insights gained in this study helped in establishing a significant understanding of supermarket frontline workers, which could help the management to plan programs that could help their employees cope with their work-related stress. The researchers used a validated self-constructed survey questionnaire to gather responses from the selected respondents, while a descriptive-correlational research design wasused. The respondents comprised of fifteen (15) supermarket frontline workers who are considered to befrontline service providers as they are often performing face-to-face interaction with customers.The results showed that Health and Safety in the Workplace obtained the highest mean of 3.71, making it the most prevalent occupational stressor among the group, whereas, in terms of coping strategies, the results showed that distraction is the most effective way in dealing with work-related stress as evidenced by the mean of 3.63. Further, after the Spearman Rank Correlation analysis was conducted, it showed that there is no significant relationship betweenthe Socio-demographic profile, Occupational Stressors, and Coping Strategies of supermarket frontline workers. Thus, based on the results, the following recommendations were provided: 1.) Implement health protocols; 2.) Provide EAP program and work-life balance; 3.) Foster open communication and employee recognition; and 4.) Adopt work- sharing and work shifting. Future conduct of the same study with a greater scope is also encouraged.