Getting worse or getting better? Understanding the antecedents and consequences of emotion profile transitions during COVID-19-induced organizational crisis.

While some organizations are thriving during the COVID-19 pandemic, many are experiencing a crisis-a threat to organizational longevity, time pressure, and inadequate resources. Building on prior work examining emotions during times of crisis and changes that people undergo during major life transitions, as well as media accounts suggesting that employees have had positive and negative emotions tied to aspects of working during COVID-19, we adopt a person-centric view to examine profiles of monthly emotions regarding organizational reopening. Additionally, we consider how employees transition from one profile of emotions to another across months. In so doing, we consider whether feelings of hope, gratitude, fear, and resentment co-occur for employees; how employees transition across profiles from one month to the next as a function of perceptions of organizational leaders' trustworthiness and their handling of the COVID-19 crisis; and how changes in profile membership relate to employee well-being, work outcomes, and prevention behaviors to avoid contracting COVID-19. Using 1,422 total measurements from August 2020 to November 2020 from employees at a single university during two monthly transitions with significant crisis-related events (i.e., return to in-person teaching, students living on campus, announcement of pay cuts and furloughs, and the subsequent announcement that some of those conditions would change), we identified four profiles of monthly emotions, with perceived leader trustworthiness and handling of the pandemic being critical features of why employees belonged to different profiles between August-September and October-November. Further, we found implications of monthly transitions for work and COVID-related outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Changes to the work-family interface during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining predictors and implications using latent transition analysis.

Employees around the world have experienced sudden, significant changes in their work and family roles due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, applied psychologists have limited understanding of how employee experiences of work-family conflict and enrichment have been affected by this event and what organizations can do to ensure better employee functioning during such societal crises. Adopting a person-centered approach, we examine transitions in employees' work-family interfaces from before COVID-19 to after its onset. First, in Study 1, using latent profile analysis (N = 379; nonpandemic data), we identify profiles of bidirectional conflict and enrichment, including beneficial (low conflict and high enrichment), active (medium conflict and enrichment), and passive (low conflict and enrichment). In Study 2, with data collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we replicate Study 1 profiles and explore whether employees transition between work-family profiles during the pandemic. Results suggest that although many remain in prepandemic profiles, positive (from active/passive to beneficial) and negative (from beneficial to active/passive) transitions occurred for a meaningful proportion of respondents. People were more likely to go through negative transitions if they had high segmentation preferences, engaged in emotion-focused coping, experienced higher technostress, and had less compassionate supervisors. In turn, negative transitions were associated with negative employee consequences during the pandemic (e.g., lower job satisfaction and job performance, and higher turnover intent). We discuss implications for future research and for managing during societal crises, both present and future. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).