Assessing How Work Arrangement Affects the Impact of COVID-19 Stress on Employee Engagement Among Workers in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Industry

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the workforce in all aspects across the globe and in many industries. Companies were forced to shift to alternative work arrangements to accommodate the needs of their business and customers while complying with restrictions and considering the health and safety of their workers. The primary goal of this study was to assess the self-identification (loyalty) of employees to their respective BPO organizations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The latent variables that were proposed in this study are: COVID-19 Impact on Jobs, Perceived Job Outcome of Employees, Job Satisfaction, Job Motivation, Job Demands, and Self-Identification to the organization. A total of 272 employees from the BPO industry answered a self-administered online questionnaire that contained 38 questions which was distributed by a purposive sampling approach. The results from Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) showed that the paths of COVID-19 Impact on Jobs (IJ) to Perceived Job Outcome on Employees (PO), Perceived Job Outcome on Employees (PO) to Job Satisfaction (JS), and Perceived Job Outcome on Employees (PO) to Job Demands (JD) were significant. The findings of this study propose that BPO companies should establish clear guidelines for promotions and create a sense of progress in the roles of employees. Finally, the findings can also be applied during the post COVID-19 pandemic, particularly how to strategize the self-identification of employees with the organization during the future challenging periods.