COVID-19 and Remote Work: Experiences of Workers in New Zealand

• Main Author: Kaushal, Raghuvansh (Author)
• Other Authors: Haar, Jarrod (Contributor)
• Format: Others
• Published: Auckland University of Technology, 2021-05-25T01:34:24Z.
• Subjects: Servant leadership; Psychosocial safety climate; Organisational support for working from home; Work-life balance; Job satisfaction; Moderated-mediation; Dissertation
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 Given the global prevalence of Covid-19, there is a large gap around our understanding of how firms and their employees operate in such times. The present study sought to understand what firm factors shaped the way firms support working from home and their effects on employee job satisfaction. The present study extends our understanding of Covid-19 conditions in New Zealand by exploring servant leadership and psychosocial safety climate as predictors of organisational support for working from home. Next, these factors predict work-life balance and job satisfaction, with work-life balance expecting to mediate the influence of leadership and climate. Finally, organisational support for working from home is included as a moderator, and combined, moderated mediation models are run. This is tested using a sample of 400 New Zealand employees across the lockdown period of April 2020. The findings show that servant leadership and psychosocial safety climate are both positively related to organisational support for working from home. Next, servant leadership and psychosocial safety climate are both positively related to work-life balance and job satisfaction, and work-life balance partially mediates the influence of leadership and climate on job satisfaction. Significant interaction effects from organisational support for working from home shows that firms providing better support for employees working from home reacted more positively to positive leadership and climate. Similarly, the significant moderated mediation effect showed the indirect effect of servant leadership, and psychosocial safety climate both strengthened as organisational support for working from home improved, indicating organisational support for working from home acted as a boundary condition. The implications for organisations and human resource managers are discussed.