Abstract
BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has changed work life profoundly and concerns regarding the mental well-being of employees’ have arisen. Organizations have made rapid digital advancements and have started to use new collaborative tools such as social media platforms overnight.ObjectiveOur study aimed to investigate how professional social media communication has affected work engagement before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of perceived social support, task resources, and psychological distress as predictors and moderators of work engagement.MethodsNationally representative longitudinal survey data were collected in 2019-2020, and 965 respondents participated in all 4 surveys. Measures included work engagement, perceived social support and task resources, and psychological distress. The data were analyzed using a hybrid linear regression model. ResultsWork engagement remained stable and only decreased in autumn 2020. Within-person changes in social media communication at work, social support, task resources, and psychological distress were all associated with work engagement. The negative association between psychological distress and work engagement was stronger in autumn 2020 than before the COVID-19 outbreak.ConclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic has exerted pressure on mental health at work. Fostering social support and task resources at work is important in maintaining work engagement. Social media communication could help maintain a supportive work environment.
Highlights
The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives and work profoundly [1,2]
Fostering social support and task resources at work is important in maintaining work engagement
We proposed the following hypotheses: (1) increased social media communication predicts an increase in work engagement; (2) increased perceived social support and task resources at work predict an increase in work engagement; (3) increased psychological distress predicts decreased work engagement; and (4) the association between work engagement https://www.jmir.org/2021/6/e29036
Summary
The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives and work profoundly [1,2]. In remote work conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of digital tools and social media platforms has increased at work for information and document creation, sharing, and exchange and for video meetings and discussions [6]. These tools are often used for both work and nonwork purposes among colleagues and have been found to enhance ways of working, foster innovation, allow for learning new skills, enhance performance, foster social relationships and social support, organizational identification, enable job satisfaction, and work engagement [6,7,8,9,10,11]. We analyzed whether the within-person variation in social media communication, perceived social https://www.jmir.org/2021/6/e29036
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