Abstract
The recent COVID-19 pandemic posed a challenge to employee well-being and will have a lasting impact on how safe employees feel about their work environment. This study aims at examining: (1) the impact of safety perception of employees on their job attitudes; and (2) what factors affect their expectations that their organizations will effectively protect them from potential health threats. Using data from the U.S. Federal Government, this study divided organizational responses to COVID-19 aimed at protecting their employees into the following three types: protecting the employees while working on site, reducing the number of employees working on-site, and providing mental and health assistance. The effects of these organizational responses were analysed separately, and regression analysis was performed with these factors with regards to employees’ safety perception. The results showed that the first group of measures, protecting the employees while they are in the workplace, had generally the most significant influences on employees’ feeling of safety. The attempt to protect those in vulnerable medical conditions was also seen as significant. These findings show that organizations need to protect their employees in the workplaces during a health crisis.
Highlights
There have been remarkable changes in management theories over the last century.Traditional organization theories had not paid much attention to individuals working in an organization
The variable with the greatest mean value was coworker relationship (4.19) while the lowest mean was found for performance recognition (3.37), which indicates that people tend to cooperate well with their coworkers whereas the federal employees are relatively less likely to perceive that their organizations provide sufficient rewards for good performance
In relation to the first research question (RQ1), this study examined whether safety perception matters for enhancing the subjective well-being of employees and whether its effect has increased during a period of medical emergency, such as COVID-19
Summary
Traditional organization theories had not paid much attention to individuals working in an organization. Individuals were largely conceived of as economic beings induced to act like a part of the machinery of an organization. The human factor in organizations was not garnered scholarly attention until the Hawthorne study of the late 1920s found that it plays a significant role in enhancing organizational performance [1]. Parker Follett initiated the argument that scholars should take the morale and motivation of employees into the equation of organizational productivity [2]. Following her footsteps, later scholars began to suggest a new management perspective, which later formed the human relation theory [3]
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