Work alienation as a mediator between work from home-related isolation, loss of task identity and job insecurity amid the COVID-19 pandemic

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWHM-03-2021-0070
• Published date: 11 February 2022
• Date: 11 February 2022
• Pages: 287-306
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Healthcare management,HR & organizational behaviour,Human resource policy,Employee welfare
• Author: Prashant Mehta

Work alienation as a mediator

between work from home-related

isolation, loss of task identity

and job insecurity amid

the COVID-19 pandemic

Prashant Mehta

Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies–Nagpur,

Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, India

Abstract

Purpose –This sudden disruption of work in the world due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

pandemic has led to unravelling situations hitherto unknown to researchers and therefore requires careful and

thorough investigation. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between work from home

(WFH)isolation, WFH loss of task identityand job insecurity amid COVID-19 pandemic WFH arrangements by

focusing on information technology/information technology-enabled services (IT/ITES) sector employees in

India. The study also investigated the mediating role of work alienation.

Design/methodology/approach –Data were collected from IT/ITES sector employees who were working

from home. The sample size was 312, with 71.8% males and 28.2% females. The study used a descriptive

research design. Analysis of the data was carried out using partial least square structural equation modeling.

All constructs–independent and dependent–were reflectively measured. The evaluated quality parameters

(discriminant validity, reliability, collinearity, common method bias) for all the constructs were found to be

within acceptable limits.

Findings –Findings from the study indicate that WFH-related isolation and loss of task identity have a

significant direct impact on job insecurity. These, along with the mediating construct of work alienation,

predicted a 35.8% variance in job insecurity. The study found that work alienation provided complementary

mediation between the independent constructs evaluated.

Originality/value –This study attempts to scrape the surface and gain insight into the problems that may

arise in the new world of work. This paper presents an attempt to explain some of the psychological pitfalls

associated with WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic and to understand their impact on job insecurity.

Keywords Work alienation, Job insecurity, Task identity, Isolation

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Ever since it was first reported in Wuhan city of Hubei province in China (Li et al., 2020), the

coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has wreaked havoc and completely, or in

some cases irreversibly, altered the way work is done. One of the defining changes that has

taken place due to the COVID-19 pandemic is the work from home arrangement for many

professions and occupations. While some of the professions were already accustomed to such

a kind of working (although not to the current levels), for many other professions and

professionals, this change was thrust on them overnight (Kramer and Kramer, 2020). Many

recent studies focusing on the precedents of work from home (WFH) have indicated that WFH

provides employees with “the opportunity to adjust, when, where and how of work”(Baruch,

2000;Choudhury et al., 2021;Putnam and Mumby, 2016) and may even lead to employee

happiness (Mehta, 2021a). Other studies have drawn attention to the flipside of WFH, such as

Job insecurity

amid COVID 19

287

Declaration: There is no potential conflict of interest.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1753-8351.htm

Received 25 March 2021

Revised 31 August 2021

20 November 2021

24 January 2022

Accepted 27 January 2022

InternationalJournal of Workplace

Health Management

Vol. 15 No. 3, 2022

pp. 287-306

© Emerald Publishing Limited

1753-8351

DOI 10.1108/IJWHM-03-2021-0070

loss of belongingness in the workplace causing a reduction in productivity (Bertschek and

Niebel, 2016).

As organizations and professionals weigh the pros and cons of working from home, a shift

in the way work was carried out pre-COVID-19 pandemic is highly anticipated: “If there is

hysteresis as people learn new ways to work remotely and businesses reorganize, the

pandemic-driven changes may portend more lasting effects on the organization of work”

(Brynjolfsson et al., 2020). With some of the companies, such as TATA Consultancy Services

(TCS), already indicating that WFH will be a new normal and only one-fourth of their

employees will be working from office by 2025 (FEOnline, 2020), the world of work is set to

change forever.

The shift of work from office to home due to sudden and massive disruption in the

workplaceled to spatial and temporalsegregation of work. Spatialsegregation may have had a

determinantalimpact upon employeesin the form of social isolation (Harris et al.,2007;Kurland

and Cooper, 2002), as employees are devoid of the comfort of face-to-face interaction,making

them unable to comprehendthe underlying emotions associatedwith any conversation (Mann

et al.,2000). Further, formal conversationsin the form of emails tend to be impersonal and cold,

lacking the warmth of in-person communication (Braun et al.,2019). Worker’s need for social

attachment may therefore remain unfulfilled dueto spatial segregation.

Work alienation exists when an individual is not able to express himself/herself through

work (Marx, 1963); work alienation therefore reflects a contradiction between the nature of

work and the nature of man. The nature of tasks in the world of work exacerbates alienation

(Marx, 1963). This spatial and temporal segregation of work has led to the decomposition of

work into multiple miniature segments of subtasks that can be carried out at different

locations and at different times, thereby completely altering the nature of the work

(Alexander et al., 2010).

The value an employee perceives of himself/herself depends not only on the product or

component that he/she is producing, but also on the relative importance of the component in

the overall context of the organizational objectives (Hackman and Oldham, 1980). It can

therefore be assumed that the fragmentation of work makes it difficult for an employee to

evaluate and understand the significance and importance of his/her work in the overall

context of the organizational goals, leading to a feeling of loss of task identity.

The study is based on the assumption that these sudden changes in the form of lack of

social connection with fellow workers lead to isolation, change in the nature of work, and

consequent contradiction between the nature of man and the nature of work. This cascade

further leads to work alienation and the eventual loss of task identity due to fragmentation of

work, which may introduce a high level of uncertainty in the minds of the workers, thereby

leading to job insecurity.

The present article reports an investigation that sought to understand the impact of WFH

isolation and loss of task identity on job insecurity due to changed working conditions

brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study further attempts to delve into the role

of work alienation as a mediator between these relationships.

The data for the study were collected from 312 employees working in the information

technology or information technology-enabled services (IT/ITES) sector in India.

Objectives

The following research objectives were set for this study:

(1) To investigate the relationship between WFH isolation, task identity and work

alienation.

(2) To investigate the relationship between work alienation and job insecurity.

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