Date of Conferral

5-16-2025

Date of Award

May 2025

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

James Herndon

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a change in how individuals perceived the way of conducting work in the United States. Human resources (HR) leaders need to understand this change because many employees lost their jobs without the means for sustainable work. Other employees maintained their jobs, suddenly shifting to telework, resulting in mixed productivity and work engagement levels. The purpose of this quantitative moderation analysis study was to examine whether there was a moderating effect of employer-provided psychological resources on perceived productivity and work engagement among HR employees after the sudden shift to telework. The conservation of resources theory and the job demands-resources model grounded this study. The participants were 308 HR employees within the United States who abruptly switched to telework during the pandemic. They completed the Utrecht work engagement scale-9 and Bélanger’s productivity scale. The multivariate analysis of variance results were statistically significant in work engagement and productivity, F(4, 610) = 8.293, p < .001; Pillai’s Trace = .103; partial η2 = .052. Informal mentorship were, F(2, 305) = 14.850, p < .001; Pillai’s Trace = .089; partial η2 = .089, and supervisor meetings, F(2, 305) = 12.250, p < .001; Pillai’s Trace = .074; partial η2 = .074. The results showed that psychological resources, such as supervisor meetings and informal mentorship, had a positive statistical significance in the productivity and engagement of HR employees after the sudden shift to a telework environment. A key recommendation is for HR leaders to use these results to prepare for the next event and moderate its impact. The implications for positive social change include the potential for HR leaders to help employees navigate future stressful transitions to and from telework environments.

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