Covid-19 Pandemic: Perspectives on Employee Engagement, Work From Home and an Employee Wellness Programme in a Debt Collection Organisation in Gauteng, South Africa

• Author: Doret Botha,Rein Coetzee
• DOI: 10.25159/2664-3731/9235
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Pages: 1-28

Article

African Journal of Employee Relations

https://doi.org/10.25159/2664-3731/9235

https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/AJER

ISSN 2664-3731 (Online), ISSN 2709-0426 (Print)

#9235 | 28 pages

© The Authors 2022

COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives on Employee

Engagement, Work From Home and an Employee

Wellness Programme in a Debt Collection

Organisation in Gauteng, South Africa

Doret Botha

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2787-8107

North-West University, South Africa

Doret.Botha@nwu.ac.za

Rein Coetzee

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6126-3427

ADRS Diversified Services, South

Africa

reinc@adrs.co.za

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly changed and is still changing the way people

live and work on a global scale. During the pandemic, most organisations are

forced to implement a work-from-home solution, irrespective of employees’

preferences, abilities, and the nature and extent of jobs. In this research, we

aimed to explore perspectives on employee engagement, work from home and

an employee wellness programme in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

among employees of an organisation that focuses on outsourced debt

collections. The study was conducted within a positivistic research paradigm. A

quantitative cross-sectional, survey design was employed. Total population

sampling was used. Data were collected from 95 respondents through a web-

based survey using a coded questionnaire. From the results of study, it became

evident that the proactive approach taken by the leadership of the organisation

early in 2020, in anticipation of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted

in positive outcomes for the organisation. The results indicated that the

employees were, to a great extent, engaged in the workplace, mainly owing to

organisational and leadership support, the flexibility allowed in the work-from-

home model and organisational concern for the health and wellness of

employees. However, the employees were subjected to challenges generally

experienced by homeworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as increased

workloads and working hours, loneliness due to isolation, and inadequate office

infrastructure. The results of the study are important to inform business

decisions regarding the work-from-home model as a temporary or alternative

working arrangement in the organisation under investigation and may benefit

organisations operating in similar contexts.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; employee engagement; employee wellness;

employee wellness programme; work from home

Botha and Coetzee

2

Introduction

The year 2020 will be remembered as the year with the greatest global pandemic in

history with the outbreak of COVID-19. On 30 January 2020, the World Health

Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19 as a global health emergency

(WHO, 2020b). A total of 7 818 confirmed cases worldwide were reported, with the

majority in China (WHO, 2020a). A year later, on 21 February 2021, the WHO reported

110 749 023 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2 455 131 deaths, worldwide

(WHO, 2021). This devastating pandemic had and still has a serious impact across all

societies, economies, human lives and, not least, organisations. Organisations were

forced to adapt and change to the “new normal”. The strict lockdown protocols that

resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic required many organisations at a global level to

close their operations, and people had to remain at home for extended periods. Several

organisations had to realign and redesign their entire work systems. Work from home

(WFH) (also referred to as remote working, virtual working and telecommuting or

telework) has grown in its use and has become part of the “new normal” (Wang et al.,

2021, p. 17). WFH is defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO,

2020, p. 5) as “a working arrangement in which a worker fulfils the essential

responsibilities of his/her job while remaining at home, using information and

communications technology (ICT)”.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most workers had no experience of working in a remote

environment, nor were they or their organisations prepared to support this practice

(Wang et al., 2021, p. 17). The outbreak of the pandemic in conjunction with strict

lockdown requirements and protocols forced people to work remotely from home,

irrespective of their preferences, abilities, and the nature and extent of their jobs (Wang

et al., 2021, p. 22). Mercer’s 2020 Global Talent Trends Study revealed that only 22%

of companies were ready for mass remote working before the outbreak of Covid-19

(ILO, 2020, p. 7). Carnevale and Hatak (2020) state that the landscape has changed so

much for organisations that they will have to focus on the technical, physical and socio-

psychological elements of the workforce. The authors highlight the changing role of

human resource management and indicate that they will play a critical role to assist

employees in managing the radical changes in the work and social environment.

The need for this research was embedded in the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has

changed the world we live in and, more specifically, the world of work. The lockdown

situation has changed the way people work, shop, travel, interact with others and even

the way they engage with one another in the religious realm. The pandemic has forced

countries, governments and organisations to review certain health protocols; people

have to sanitise regularly and have to maintain social distancing practices. This in turn

has an impact on the way in which employers and managers lead and manage their

organisations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, most organisations are forced to

implement a WFH solution. There is a need to conduct further research to determine

what the new world of work will look like, focusing on leadership and the human