Effect of Occupational Stress on Individual Work Performance and Growth during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Wijerathna, T. Y. G. V. G., Wijesinghe, A. G .K., Abeynayake, N. R., and Wijesinghe, W. A. S. S.
ABSTRACT
The Sri Lankan government announced a country lockdown in March 2020, due to the widespread of COVID-19 virus which was affecting every organization. Consequently, employees around the country were pushed into difficult settings due to significant changes in the work environment that created stressful situations. This study aimed to identify the effect of occupational stress on individual work performance and individual growth of employees in the agriculture sector government organizations in Kandy District during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study specifically explored how techno overload, work overload, job insecurity, loneliness, and individual factors influence employee job performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual work performance and individual growth under COVID-19 are the main two dependent variables considered. A structured questionnaire survey was administered to collect primary data from a randomly selected sample of middle-level workers covering seven organizations. Data were analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) in SPSS. According to the standardized regression weights analysis, work overload, loneliness, and individual factor are the influential factors affecting employee individual work performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings are beneficial for those organizations to understand the causes of lowering employee performance during a shock situation such as COVID-19 to take possible recovery measures.
KEYWORDS: COVID-19, Individual work performance, Growth, Occupational stress