Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic

Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic Self-
quarantine Period in Indonesia

Septian Sugestyo Putroa, Setyo Riyantob

a
Master of Management Student, Universitas Mercu Buana, Jakarta, Indonesia
b
Associate Professor, Universitas Mercu Buana, Jakarta, Indonesia

septiankuliahlagi@gmail.com; Setyo.riyanto@mercubuana.ac.id

Abstract:
In the increasing mortality rate caused by Covid-19 infection in Indonesia, the government
advised every organization to apply for work from home system for their office workers to do
self-quarantine and slowing down the virus widespread nationally in Indonesia. As there is no
clear information about the estimation of when the pandemic in Indonesia will be over, working
from home system will be applied for office workers in a long period with an unknown end
date. The stress impact from working at home during self-quarantine is not well understood.
The paper developed to examine the stress impact of working from home during Covid-19 self-
quarantine period. Through literature review with descriptive analysis approach, the paper
seeks relevancies of stress as the impact of long-term work from home system. The paper also
includes the result of interviewing 27 office workers with work location in Jakarta, Indonesia,
using group discussion in an online face-to-face meeting digital application, about their
experience of suffering stress during work from home. All members of the discussion suspiring
about work from home system during the pandemic that does not resemble their expectation of
less stressful than work from home on a regular daily working basis before the pandemic. The
obligation of accompanying their children to study, taking care of the house cleaning, cooking,
and, significantly, higher workload given by their organization has become the reason work
from home during a pandemic is more stressful than what they have imagined. Both methods
showing a strong conclusion that working from home in a long-term period of Covid-19
pandemic self-quarantine causing individual stress impact more than the office worker's
expectation. The paper concludes that based on the group discussion and literature review,
work from home system during Covid-19 pandemic self-quarantine is stressful as caused by
the striving of life balancing between work and home duty, work task overload, and boredom
during isolation.

Keywords:
Stress, work from home, Corona Virus, Covid-19, self-quarantine

Introduction

Indonesia has become one of the infected countries with a high mortality rate caused

by Covid-19 infection. As per the official Indonesian government update (covid19.go.id) on

18 April 2020, it is known that 535 people died from a total of 6,248 confirmed positive cases.

Thus, makes Indonesia have 8.56% mortality rate, which is significantly higher than the global
Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic
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mortality rate at 6.45% where 146,088 people died among 2,160,207 confirmed positive case.

By looking into detailed virus spreading based on big cities in Indonesia, Jakarta as the capital

city of Indonesia have 2,924 of its citizens diagnosed as positive infected by Covid-19, the

number resembles 46.8% of the total positive case population in Indonesia.

In the increasing mortality rate caused by Covid-19 infection in Indonesia, the

government applied a semi-lockdown system in most of its big cities including Jakarta. The

semi-lockdown program commonly known as PSBB (Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar – Big

Scale Social Distancing) requires every organization to avoid any business activity with large

numbers of people gathered in one place. Restriction on mass or private transport occupancy,

the closing of shopping malls and non-government business office, freezing education

activities, and the government advises people to postpone any travel agenda, are general

programs that Indonesian government currently informed to the citizen. The main objective is

to get as many citizens as possible to do self-quarantine to isolate themselves at their homes to

slowing down the infection widespread. Staying at home, washing hand more and keeping

social distance are the here most changes happened in public of Indonesia (Republika, 24

March 2020).

Isolation in the big picture means the community will keep infected people with

contagious illness symptoms in a closed area system that disabling them to have direct contact

with people who are not infected (Maragakis, 2020). However, during pandemic with a high

risk of infection from humans to humans, the terms isolation among people changed to act of

protecting self in a closed system to prevent direct contact with infected people with a

contagious illness. The changing definition caused by a high number of people with positive

Covid-19 infection having no symptoms at all but are highly effective as a virus carrier. The

infection between human-to-human can happen without everyone noticing. Other than

isolation, for people that work in government and public service that require to be present at
Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic
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the workplace, the government requires them to perform social distancing. Social distancing

can be defined as an act of keeping distance and space physically between two or more people

to prevent virus transmission (Beall, 2020).

Work from home is the popular working system applied currently to support the act of

isolation and self-quarantine. With bringing the work home, a new dilemma comes out as the

pandemic is not the only reason that stressed-out people. The virus widespread program from

the government also triggers stress in microenvironments such as family. The paper developed

to examine the stress impact as caused by work from home during pandemic self-quarantine.

Methodology

Literature Review: Work from Home as The New Norm and Its Stress Impact

The term 'work from home' defined as an act of completing work tasks primarily at

home (Crosbie et al., 2004). It can be an unfinished task that the office worker brings to home

or any work that they intentionally brought to home. Usually, office workers choose to exercise

work from home to have more time with family members or because their organization allowed

to have it once in a certain period. But during Covid-19 pandemic, the reason to have work

from home system changed drastically.

Work from home is one of the systems most organizations applied for their employee

to keep the business continue. The aim is to flatten the curve of daily increasing Covid-19

positive case by campaigning physical distancing among office workers and with society in

public transport. Work from home is not a new working system in Indonesia as most of the

digitalized organization with the mobile working method have applied the system for years.

However, it is unpopular to most organizations in Indonesia with limited technology

infrastructure and requires high intensity of meetings and work interrelationship between its

employees. Before Covid-19 pandemic, it is uncommon for work from home systems applied

to the majority company in Indonesia, especially Jakarta as the capital city. The term 'work
Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic
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from home' among office workers had become a situation they dreamed to have at least once

in a week. The perception compared to regular working day such as better flexibility, avoid

direct contact with superior, more family time, and less stressful are the reasons why work from

home system become one of the factor office workers consider when they seek new

organization to work at.

With the high exposure of terms such as Covid-19, Corona, and work from home

(WFH) as contemporary terminology had entered the public perspective slowly as the new

norm. These terminologies had mentioned in news in every media platform in Indonesia every

day over and over until it reached the normality level and people start to treat them as regular

information on a daily basis (Djalante et al., 2020). The office worker became very familiar

with work from home and the terms losing its exclusivity.

By the government require the organization to restrict any non-essentials activities in

the office, office workers are now can experience what they have dreamed before, work from

home, until they notice that it is for a long period of time. For office workers that already getting

used to an environment of working at the office regularly, they are facing significant changes

in the environment of working from home. In comparison between the official workplace and

home as the new environment, working from home will have a more unpleasant feeling and

low level of net affect (Song and Gao, 2019). Anxiety and stress are a potential impact of

homeworking because office workers must integrate their work and family activities in balance

(Mirchandani, 2000). According to the United Nations study reported in Eurofound and the

International Labour Office (2017), many people positioned work from home as a goal to reach

the work-life balance, in contrast to people who find themselves experience work from home

in a daily basis, reports suffering a higher level of stress. Lack of structure, too many

distractions, difficulty setting boundaries, and lack of focus are the aspects in general that

causing stress during work from home (Scott, 2020). By working from home, an employee will
Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic
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not handle only their office work, but also all the duty in related to house task and the duty to

accompany their children in the study.

Stress from Balancing Work-Home Duty

Working from home (telework) is a practice to have work-life balance other than

flexible working hours, a compressed workweek, family leave program, childcare in the

workplace, and financial assistance (Riyanto et al., 2019). Under pandemic situation and

proximity, limited resources are being competed by family and work, particularly time and

energy, with consequences for children and both parents in the family (Rigotti et al., 2020).

Office workers that previously had a housemaid to help them with the housework, now they

find it hard to manage their time allocation in the morning as the maid unavailable to help them

during the pandemic. Cooking, sweeping, dishwashing, ironing and many other home duties

now is the office worker's new burden. With the closing of schools, children in the family have

to remotely study and doing their homework at home. The office worker as their parent have

an extra duty to replace the teacher's job. Even though online learning media already prepared

and provided by the school, the parents still find it inconvenient as they might not have the

capability to explain the syllabus clearly (Abidah et al., 2020) and do not have the capability

to be a teacher.

Stress from Isolation & Self-Quarantine

Eurofound and the International Labour Office (2017) also includes the study from

United Nations mentioning stress can come as an impact of loneliness from limiting direct

interaction with people outside the house. Social isolation is one of the factors that increase the

stress of home-based workers on a regular basis and is giving a higher impact on office workers

that not exercise work from home in daily routine. The study does make a point as socializing

is the basic needs of humans and communicating with the same people in isolation over time

can result in interpersonal conflict and boredom. Boredom, by experimental evidence, can
Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic
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produce the syndrome of stress through effecting the increase in neuroendocrine activity

(Thackray, 1981).

Stress from Extra-Workload

It is undeniable that Covid-19 brings a significant negative impact on business and

economic performance globally. Business organizations in Indonesia also suffer from

decreasing sales and revenue. The situation forces the office workers to work harder to deliver

efficiencies, as improving sales might seems impossible. Organizations adding extra effort,

additional projects and multilevel tasks to their office worker are a set of necessary activities

to keep the business survive the pandemic. Failing the plan equals to higher risk of laying off

their employee or even close the business. These sets of extra tasks have come to office workers

as a highway of stress coming through their life.

Setiyani, Djumarno, Riyanto, and Nawangsari (2019) argue that a comfortable work

environment can increase productivity, while during self-quarantine with high workload and

unsupportive house environment, office workers will find it hard to have a conducive working

atmosphere that can lead to stress. The work situation at home becomes more unpleasant as

stress level gets higher and the individual will more trying to escape from it (Gupta & Beehr,

1979). The office workers have no other option but to choose to live with the stress or risking

their job taken away by the organization. The job insecurity also related to depression and

anxiety symptoms for women and men with no boundaries in ethnicity, at the same time lower

depression and anxiety symptoms can come as a result of provided job support (Fan et al.,

2015). On the contrary, Crosbie et al (2004) argue that men have higher stress levels as they

define their existence as wage earners, fewer personal conflicts than women when combining

home and work duty. As the culture in Indonesia where women have main duties to handle the

housework, they intend to have better stress management than men.

Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic
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Interview through Online Face-to-Face Group Discussion

The paper also seeks relevancies of stress as an impact of working from home by

gathering information from office workers that have experienced work from home during

Covid-19 pandemic self-quarantine. As social distancing is compulsorily required by the

government, direct face-to-face interview is not an option to gather information from work

from home practitioner. The information then gathered by inviting office workers from

business organizations operating in Jakarta, into an online face-to-face meeting using an online

virtual meeting application. To get a generalized business situation, the FMCG business

organization type was specifically chosen to avoid disruptive feedback from subjects in group

discussion.

In a total of 27 office workers from 3 reputable FMCG organizations with head office

in Jakarta accepted the invitation to joining a group discussion to discuss furthermore about

their experience and stress of doing work from home since the beginning of the requirement of

work from home activated by their organization. This group of respondents was pre-qualified

based on type of job description, how long they have been working from home, marital status,

family members, house-maid support availability, and a working spouse. The respondents are

employees with job descriptions related to office work and during work from home were

supported by laptop or PC to work with, married with working spouse, and have at least one

child in the family. They also had to have at least 2 weeks of working from home before the

discussion was held. The respondents' background then interviewed to be analyzed.

What is the respondents’ job description?

All the respondents are currently working in reputable FMCG industries with strong

business and stable funding with a head office location in Jakarta. Their job descriptions are

grouped as financial accountants, supply chain planners, HR specialists, marketing executives,

and IT managers. Their organization provides them with a laptop that can be borrowed and
Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic
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brought home to support work from home, only one respondent is using a personal PC to do

the work task. The utility is being used mostly as media of daily office communication (email,

online meeting) and work task processing.

How long self-quarantine have been experienced, and how to do it?

The group members have a varied period of experiencing work from home, half of the

team already passing through 5 weeks of self-quarantine period, while the least is only have it

for 3 weeks. The self-quarantine they perform was not a total isolation where they did not go

out of the house at all and totally restrict any interaction with other individuals. They still went

out to get house supplies on a weekly basis while making sure to have as minimum contact as

possible with another individual outside the house. During self-quarantine they did not receive

any guest at all but receiving packages from the deliveryman.

With whom they experience self-quarantine at home?

As pre-qualification already filtered the group member, all responder having their

spouse and children at home but letting their maid taking leave during the pandemic to

minimize the risk of infection. 33% of the group members having a spouse with no official

work, all of them are housewives. The Jakarta government makes sure that there are no school

nor university held any activity, thus the children stay at home all the time with online learning

and homework to do.

Result and Discussion

It is clear by recalling study result from the United Nations, that people who perform

working from home on a daily basis suffer higher stress level than an employee that works in

the office or other workplace. Song and Gao (2020) also support the study as the mentioned

working at home will make a person have more unpleasant than working at the office. Stress

during work from home can come from an inability to achieve work-life balance as office

worker have limited time and energy (Rigotti et al., 2020); from boredom (Thackray, 1981) as
Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic
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caused by limited human interaction in self-quarantine; and from work overload (Fan et al.,

2015).

The interview with group discussion attended by office workers from FMCG in Jakarta

supports the literature review of stress impact caused by work from home. With the business

getting much more struggling in a competitive market caused by the pandemic, the workload

came with extra bundles, forcing the respondents to seek efficiency in terms of cost-saving and

ways to sell more products. Stress from workload is getting more serious when the respondents

facing another threat at home. As their maid taking their leave and went to their home, no

support was available to handle the house duty. Respondents have to split the task with their

spouse to cover all of the required tasks. For respondents whom their spouse is a housewife,

positioned in a better situation as they only have a small part to do in house duty.

In serial with stress from seeking a work-home life balance, helping the children to

study is the next problem. Online learning has limitations for not giving a detailed explanation

in the syllabus, leaving the children with a lot of question marks. With the self-quarantine

happening, children have no other option but their parents to ask for help. Suffering from

workload stress and house duty responsibility, respondent experience additional difficulties in

allocating time and energy to teach their children. The stress triggering chain is not over yet as

insecurity comes in the last part. Worrying about the pandemic itself is stressful according to

the respondents. The risk of infection from the outside, boredom from inside the house and

uncertain future situation concerning supply and health support were affecting their

psychological work environment.

Conclusion

From the literature review and group discussion with office workers that practice work

from home, the paper shows a strong cause and effect relationship between stress and work

from home. Work from home during pandemic self-quarantine is significantly different than
Evaluating Stress Impact of Working from Home during Covid-19 Pandemic
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work from home in the normal regular daily work life of an employee. The paper concludes

that based on the group discussion and literature review, work from home system during Covid-

19 pandemic self-quarantine is stressful as caused by the striving of life balancing between

work and home duty, work task overload, and boredom during isolation. Work from home

during pandemic does not have clear certainty of when it will be over, and the in-house

environment does not have what office worker needs to support productivity due to stress in

failure to balance work life with changing house life such as house duty, teaching the children

and worrying the pandemic condition. However further future research is needed to examine

the stress impact from work at home with a larger subject population and quantitative method

to get stronger results.

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