Changes in employee wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic: a study of healthcare staff, education staff and salespeople

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated measures immediately caused major changes in March 2020. There are signs that these changes have a negative effect on well-being. However, some studies contradict this, particularly those among the working population. The pandemic may actually turn out favorably for some groups, distorting the overall picture. In this study, we focus on three professions in which the COVID-19 pandemic and associated measures are known to have a direct effect on their work tasks and amount of work healthcare workers, teachers and sales workers. Using GEE analyzes, we investigated whether there is a significant decrease in well-being and a change in working conditions and to what extent the working conditions are related to well-being. The results showed that there is only a limited decrease in well-being. Only for burn- out complaints, a deterioration was found among healthcare staff and sales people. Working conditions mainly showed a favorable change in all professions, except for autonomy. Autonomy decreased in all professions. Although we did find a relationship between the examined working conditions and burn-out complaints, we cannot explain the developments in well- being by the change in working conditions.