Work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic; exploration of perceived stress and social support

Abstract

Background: Data was collected online from the employees working from home, for one month, during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic from Delhi and Delhi NCR Region.

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the perceived stress and social support mainly from the employees working from home during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Materials and Methods: An online data was collected using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and a self-designed questionnaire.

Results:  The mean age of the respondents was 32.3 (SD:2.8) years. Out of the total sample of 92, there was an equal number of females and males. The majority of them were married and working in Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) industry.

There was a significant difference between the perceived stress and social support of males and females across the different industries of work and between the employees who were tested positive.

Hours of sleep reported to act as a buffer against the perceived stress of employees and positively correlated with perceived social support. Further, the social support of employees provided a barrier to the stress perception of the employees.

Conclusion: Working from home during the second wave of the pandemic was posing a high psychosocial risk to the employees. Their occupational demands were high with fewer resources to manage and adversities of social distancing, lockdown, dependent family members. Such situations demand flexibility and support from the organization towards the employees to mitigate this crises situation.