The role of employee assistance programs under COVID-19-induced work-family conflict: Effects on service employees' work engagement and burnout.

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic places substantial stress on service employees' work and home lives. Little research has explored the negative effects of perceived stress from COVID-19 on work and home domains in terms of employees' attitudes toward work. We adopt a job demands-resources perspective to examine how perceived stress from COVID-19 affects employees' work (i.e., work engagement and burnout) and home life (i.e., work-family conflict and family-work conflict). In particular, we address whether organizational employee assistance programs can buffer these negative effects. We sampled service employees (n = 248), and results show that perceived stress from COVID-19 increases work engagement and burnout through work-family conflict and family-work conflict. Furthermore, employee assistance programs mean that employees are less likely to experience work-family conflict and family-work conflict when faced with perceived stress from COVID-19. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and propose directions for future research.