Employee Stress and Remote Work During COVID-19

Abstract

In March of 2020, COVID-19 sent approximately 1.5 million university instructors into remote work (Hussar et al., 2020). This study aimed to determine how family status and remote work intensity of university instructors who were required to do remote work has affected the worklife balance and stress of employees. Conflict was looked at in relation to segmentation preference when required to work remotely. Prior research suggested that women prefer segmentation and men prefer integration and when working remotely but are more likely to experience work-life conflict if those roles are reversed (Eddleston & Mulki, 2017). It was hypothesized that remote work intensity and stress would be correlated, and it was hypothesized that remote work intensity would also be correlated with work-life conflict. Next, it was hypothesized that there would be an interaction between gender and children on both work-tolife and life-to-work conflict. Finally, it was hypothesized that there would be an interaction between conflict, gender and children. There was a total of 29 participants recruited through PARQ and utilizing the snowball method. The only statistically significant finding was that women without children experience more work-to-life conflict than men without children. Although the current study did not find any support that remote work increases stress or conflict, this study would suggest that employees may be benefiting from remote work, which should be taken into consideration for current and future employees.