The Impact of Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic on Employee Engagement and Performance: A Case Study of MTN Nigeria Telecommunications Limited

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic has brought an unprecedented impact on employee engagement and performance. The changing workplace environment has triggered psychological pressure and uncertainty and caused negative consequences for employees. In light of this unplanned situation that affect employees and the predictive closed relationship between employee engagement and performance, this study was developed to identify the key drivers of staff engagement and performance and its impact on organizational performance in the current context. The literature review showed different ways that researchers, organizations, and scholars perceive employee engagement. Several models and theories explained the concept of Employee engagement and performance and provided a context that directs the impact of COVID-19 on staff engagement and performance. The primary source of data collection was the online questionnaire. A random sampling of 339 staff was selected from a population of 1,700 employees in the different departments in MTN Nigeria out of which 306 respondents provided their feedback and this constituted the sample size while no response from 33 employees. Five hypotheses were formulated, and a conclusion was drawn from them. The calculation and analysis were obtained using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to get the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient while regression analysis was used to analyse the stated hypotheses. The result summary was analyzed considering the key objectives, it was evident that the majority of the employees felt alienated and disengaged due to the prolonged work-from-home, no informal meetings and socializations even though they still felt engaged while working for the organization.