Öz
The most important difference of 21st century from the 20th century is human resources. In addition to this, the management department of organizations should deal with them in physical and psychological aspects of the employees and motivate them by improving their working conditions. Thus, employees are satisfied to work in organizations that meet all expectations (such as working environment, wages, promotion, job security). Performance of workers are effective in the organizations which increase job satisfaction. Thanks to this, enterprises achieve their aims and objectives in effectively and efficiently. However, stress has also become an essential part of our lives with the globalization in the 21st century. When work stress is at the appropriate level, it has positive effects on people. On the other hand, too much work stress causes negativities. These negativities in working conditions cause intensive stress for workers. For this reason, the level of satisfaction that employees receive from work decreases because of stress related negativities, and accordingly their performance also decreases. An organization with a declining performance cannot achieve its goals and objectives, and cannot survive for a long time. Therefore, in this study, the mediating role of work stress on the relationship between job satisfaction and work performance has been investigated. Bank employees were selected for fieldwork because of intense and ordinary working conditions. A survey that measures job stress, performance and job satisfaction levels was applied to 220 public banks and 220 private bank employees in Ankara. Correlation test was used to determine the relationship, the structural equation model was used to determine the effect level, and Anova and T tests were used to reveal the mean differences for demographic variables. It has been found that, job satisfaction has an impact on performance and job stress has a positive and significant mediating role between job satisfaction and employee performance.