Work during COVID-19: assessing the influence of job demands and resources on practical and psychological outcomes for employees

Purpose A sudden shift of work from the office to home amid global lockdown demands exploration of factors that facilitate or obstruct remote working and their impact on practical and psychological outcomes for the employee when individual mandatorily telecommutes full-time with no prior experience of the same. Based on job demands and resources model (JD-R), the present study explores the role of certain job demands and resources on negative and positive outcomes through mediating role of strain and well-being, respectively. Design/methodology/approach A data sample of 371 IT sector employees was collected and confirmatory factor analysis model was run to assess the model fit indices, convergent and divergent validities of the data. While proposed hypotheses of the study were tested using structural equations modeling (SEM) technique. Findings It was found that workload pressure, task interdependence, professional isolation and family interference in work lead to exhaustion and further stress, whereas the presence of autonomy and schedule flexibility and sufficient technology resources improve employee work-life balance and further better productivity and performance and job satisfaction. Improved well-being was also found to reduce stress for full-time telecommuters. Practical implications This study provides implications that will help in doing away with exhaustion and stress for employees and ensure business continuity in emergencies like COVID-19 pandemic. Originality/value There are no past instances of mandatory full-time telecommuting arrangement by organizations, and researchers never had the opportunity to study it. This research, based on the JD-R model provides for the first time empirical insights into the experiences of mandatory full-time telecommuting during COVID-19 induced lockdown.

Automated summary

The study found that workload pressure, task interdependence, professional isolation, and family interference lead to exhaustion and stress for employees, while autonomy, schedule flexibility, and sufficient technology resources help improve work-life balance, productivity, performance, and job satisfaction. Improved well-being was also found to reduce stress for full-time telecommuters.