RAPID: Systemic Differences in Employee Outcomes from COVID-19 and the Effectiveness of Organizational Response

University Of Houston, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

The spread of COVID-19 within the United States has forced radical changes in people’s work structure, status, and lives. Three extremes include a) millions of employees now working remotely (telecommuting), b) millions more furloughed, laid off, or suddenly unemployed, and c) a third group of “essential employees” continuing to work in public at great risk to their own health. Such rapid changes in the structure of individual work conditions have led to unique challenges and pressures for these three groups. Further, the divisions of employees into each of the aforementioned groups may exacerbate societal disadvantages already noted in science and practice, including socioeconomic status (SES) and race because these divisions are seen in the types of jobs that allow for (or mandate) continued work through social distancing requirements instituted by federal and state governments. Thus, the current project will examine how such rapid changes in work structure and status have differentially affected employees across various levels of job structure, SES, and race. The researchers will examine (1) how these changes affect employee outcomes (including job attitudes, health and wellbeing, and job performance), and (2) the ways in which organizational responses to COVID-19 helped to mitigate (or exacerbate) these outcomes. This study seeks to advance the field of organizational science by uncovering the ways in which continued changes in occupational structure and organizational responses interact to influence employees over time. Further, this project will provide information used to potentially develop recommendations for organizational and government policy regarding best practices in handling societal-level crises of this magnitude in the future. The primary objectives of this project are to (1) empirically examine how rapid changes in work conditions due to COVID-19 have differentially affected workers across various levels of job structure, SES, and race, and (2) examine how organizational responses to COVID-19 have affected the relationship between such job changes and employee well-being. By collecting survey and open-response data from employees (and those unemployed) across four months, we aim to examine how job structure changes affect job-related attitudes and behavior and well-being. Further, we seek to identify factors that may affect these variables (e.g., financial security, changes in childcare). Finally, we plan to incorporate managerial surveys to examine how organizational policies, communication, and other response methods hinder or foster successful coping with the surveyed employee-level outcomes. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.