Keeping up with the New Normal: The Impact of Working-from-Home on the Psychological Well-Being of Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a major disruption in the lives of many people around the world. In this systematic review of literature, I intend to examine how the recent pandemic impacted the psychological well-being of Filipino workers and their means of coping with the challenges of working from home. A total of nine papers were reviewed that met the set inclusion-exclusion criteria and were analyzed thematically. As shown in the existing studies, the alternative work arrangements brought positive and negative impacts on the workers' psychological well-being with improved employee engagement and experience; various challenges were rendering adverse effects. Employees use physical, social, and cognitive mechanisms to achieve work-life balance to cope with the challenges at work. Although onsite working is slowly being imposed, the possibility and feasibility of working from home remain viable for public and private offices because it was evident that workers could still maintain work productivity and carry out their tasks even remotely. Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic, Working from Home, Psychological Well-being, Philippines, Coping, Literature Review