
The research study reports the results of a comparative analysis on causes of occupational stress among the men and women employees and its effect on the employee performance at the workplace International Agricultural Research Institute, Hyderabad. A survey of 200 employees consisting 120 men and 80 women from the institute carried out to assess the nine independent stress causing factors Work overload, Boss-Peer, Role Ambiguity, Role Overload, Co-Workers, Lack of control, Career, Individual, Physiological Factors and its effect on employees’ Performance a dependent factor. The descriptive analysis, correlation techniques and parametric statistics like t-test carried out to arrive at the conclusions. To measure the reliability of the scale used for this study, and internal consistencies of the survey questionnaire, the reliability statistics Cronbach’s alpha (C-Alpha) and Spearman-Brown split-half reliability were estimated. The overall C-Alpha value is 0.84 whereas the Spearman-Brown split half static is 0.92. The C-Alpha values ranged from 0.68 to 0.82 for men and 0.64 to 0.80 for women, for all the 9 independent and one dependent factor. The results of the study indicate that the medium level occupational stress exist at the workplace in general, effecting the performance moderately and women employees experience more stress than men. Health-wise, some employees developed chronic neck and back pain, an effect of long sitting hours at work. The significance of the study is that the authors believe it is the first study in India carried out in agriculture sector.