Financial Insecurity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Spillover Effects on Burnout-Disengagement Relationships and Performance of Employees Who Moonlight.

Roziah Mohd Rasdi,Seyedali Ahrari,Zeinab Zaremohzzabieh

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.610138

Roziah Mohd Rasdi, Seyedali Ahrari + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.610138

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Journal: Frontier in Psychology	Publication Date: Feb 18, 2021
Citations: 16	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universiti Putra Malaysia

Abstract

The novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has magnified the issue of financial insecurity. However, its effect on individual-organizational relations and, consequently, on organizational performance remains understudied. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the spillover effect of financial insecurity on the burnout–disengagement relationship during the pandemic. The authors investigate in particular whether the spillover effect influences the performance of moonlighting employees and also explore the mediating effect of disengagement on the relationship between financial insecurity and burnout interaction effect and the performance (i.e., mediated-moderation). This study collected responses from 162 public and private sector employees who are engaged in moonlighting activities in Malaysia. The results from the partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) revealed greater levels of financial insecurity and burnout associated with greater levels of work disengagement. The analysis of the interaction-moderation effect showed that when financial insecurity rises, the burnout effect on work disengagement increases among moonlighters. Using the PROCESS macro model, the results displayed burnout as a predictor of extra-role performance via a moderated (financial insecurity) mediation (work disengagement) relationship. Going forward, this study not only opens new avenues for research into the financial consequences of COVID-19 but also calls on managers to take proactive steps to mitigate the negative effect of the pandemic on the performance of moonlighting employees to keep them in the profession.

Highlights

Financial insecurity refers to the frequency of personal financial concerns and financial stress that interfere with work (Kim and Garman, 2004)
Our study demonstrated that burnout symptoms that emerged during the COVID-19 crisis depreciate extrarole performance through the work disengagement mediator, conditional on financial insecurity for increased work disengagement
Our research explored whether financial insecurity moderates the effect of burnout on disengagement, and how this disengagement acts as a mediating factor in this process

Summary

Introduction

Financial insecurity refers to the frequency of personal financial concerns and financial stress that interfere with work (Kim and Garman, 2004). Recent studies on work engagement and job performance have shown that employees ranked financial security as a factor of the highest significance (Kulikowski and Sedlak, 2020). When their employers in mandatory quarantine are unable to provide job protection and income replacement, Financial Insecurity During COVID-19 employees are likely to experience a complicated array of negative emotions and work stress that may impair their work effort and resources. Previous studies on post-coronavirus outbreaks have reported that employees who engaged in any outside employment tend to suffer from enormous financial stress, anxiety, and social isolation that affect their health and productivity (Banerjee and Rai, 2020; Tan et al, 2020)

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