Effect of occupational stress and remote working on psychological well-being of employees: an empirical analysis during covid-19 pandemic concerning information technology industry in hyderabad

Purpose: In the aftermath of national lockdown due to Covid-19, several organizations were forced to opt remote working, which provides several challenges and opportunities to the employees and employer. The reason for carrying out this empirical study is that the subject is new, challenging, and occupational stress exists everywhere; also, an inadequate research has been reported on such type of studies. This empirical study reports the results of the effect of occupational stress and remote working on employees’ psychological well-being in the Information Technology industry. Methodology: The effect of seven independent occupational stress-causing factors including workload, peer, physiological factors, role ambiguity, organization climate, psychological factors and job satisfaction, and an independent factor, remote working, on the dependent factor of psychological well-being of employees in Information Technology industry was measured. The psychological well-being was measured with six subscales – environment mastery, positive growth, positive relations, self-acceptance, autonomy, and purpose of life. The independent factors were measured using a survey instrument, a structured undisguised questionnaire, whereas dependent factors were measured with a shortened version of 18-item Ryff’s scale. The inferences of the outcome were made using appropriate statistical procedures. Findings: The multiple regression analysis results revealed independent factors like peer, role ambiguity, organization climate, and job satisfaction are significantly influencing the psychological well-being of the employees in the Information Technology Industry. There are minor statistically significant gender and age group differences that are affecting the psychological well-being of employees as observed. Implications:The study implies that wherever possible, the remote working options need to be worked out by the employer, in all the sectors to reduce the stress and enhance the psychological well-being of employees. Originality: Till now, no researcher has reported such type of empirical study, and the available literature is limited to occupational stress in general, without suggesting how remote working affects the psychological well-being of employees in particular.