Fishbone Diagram to Evaluate Causal Factors Affecting of Workload among MSMEs Employees during Covid-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The existence of this workload is due to an imbalance between the capacity or ability of workers and the demands of the work that must be faced. As is the case with the conditions of workers in MSMEs, the demands of work are greater than the capacity of workers. Hence, the emergence of workload can not be avoided. Many studies on the workload of MSMEs have been carried out in Indonesia, however none of existing works has employes the Fishbone approach. This study evaluates the workload of three indicators, namely mental workload, physical workload, and Covid-19 pandemic. The novelty of this work is that, unlike the existing work that use different methods, we focus Fishbone method in our work. Furthermore, we used a large sample size of 341 respondents who are MSMEs employees in Malang, Indonesia, where the survey method was used for data collection. The results of the t-test analysis showed that the average mental workload score was not the same as the average physical workload score, the positive t-count results showed that the average physical workload score was higher than the mental workload. The results of the analysis with frequency describe that the response given to each indicator is mental workload in the underioad category, physical workload in the optimal category, and the Covid-19 in the overload category. The main factors causing the workload are the Covid-19 pandemic factor where respondents feel always bothered about the pandemic, the physical workload factor where respondents often feel tired, and the mental workload factor where respondents have personal problems that interfere with work. The workload for MSME workers is in line with previous predictions that the physical load is more dominant than the mental load. However, during this Covid-19 period, a higher workload is felt due to the impact of the government's restrictions on activities.