Understanding Job Satisfaction Pre and Post

COVID
Human Resource Management Project, Term II

Under the Guidance of Prof. Tanuja Sharma

Project By Group 5
Name Roll Number
Aman Sikka 21P064
Bhaarat Pannu 21P071
J Lalith Reshma 21P083
Mukul Goel 21P094
Sanjeet Ray 21P099
Shubham Chakraverty 21P113

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 Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...........................................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................5
METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................................................6
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS...........................................................................................................7
Demographics of the surveyed population......................................................................................7
Pre-COVID scenario Correlation Matrix............................................................................................9
Post-COVID scenario Correlation Matrix..........................................................................................9
Average Employee Preferences......................................................................................................10
LEARNINGS..........................................................................................................................................11
Correlation Between Overall Employee Satisfaction & Relevant Factors......................................12
Pre COVID scenario:....................................................................................................................12
Post COVID scenario...................................................................................................................12
Rank Movement of the various parameters:.............................................................................14
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS........................................................................................14
LIMITATIONS OF OUR STUDY.............................................................................................................15
APPENDIX............................................................................................................................................16
Survey Questionnaire.....................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................18

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We express our deep sense of gratitude to Prof. Tanuja Sharma, for her valuable help and
guidance. We are thankful for the encouragement that she has provided us in completing
this project successfully. The teaching she has imparted as a part of this course has been our
guiding light throughout.
We are also thankful to all the other faculty and staff members for their kind co-operation
and help. We could utilize the knowledge gained from other courses to complete this
project successfully.
Last but certainly not the least; we would like to express our deep appreciation towards our
family members and batch mates for providing the much-needed support and
encouragement.

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 INTRODUCTION

Over the years, productivity has directly been co-related with satisfaction. The more the
workers are satisfied, the higher their productivity. This makes job satisfaction an integral
role of a Human Resource Manager. Along with it, the changing times is witnessing a shift in
the mindset of the working class wherein their commitment is a factor of organisation’s
commitment. If an entity expects Organizational Citizenship Behaviour, they must focus on
meeting the requirement of its employees.
To counter dissatisfaction, traditionally HR Managers have set up grievance redressal
mechanisms to understand and evaluate pertaining problems of the employees. Data has
become a key driver in understanding and analysing the pattern behind the dissatisfaction
of the employees. Peer review and feedback have been important tools of identifying poorly
motivated employees. All these methods require an amount of human interaction.
Now, by the onset of the new normal, the entire dynamics have changed. Human
interactions have been wiped out of the conversation and been confined to the rectangular
boxes. This COVID-19 situation brings a new challenge for the organization in making sure
that the morale and motivation level of the organization remains high. New parameters
need to be set and evaluate the current situation of the employees.
To understand how well the organisations have been able to adapt to this situation, we have
conducted an analysis of how the job satisfaction has changed from pre-COVID to post-
COVID times. The project aims to gauge the level of employee satisfaction on multiple
parameters. The change in dynamics might as well lead to change in priority of the
employees. The project will aim to identify such priority change as well.
This research is targeted to change the perceptions of organisations and make them more
receptive and adaptable to the changing work culture, in order to retain and motivate their
employees. We live in a world that is constantly evolving, especially in terms of technology.
As Human Resources, our goal should be to understand the difficulties faced by employees
and implement policies that are in line with the necessities of its most scarce resource -
human capital.
Many studies have shown that up to 33.7% of the population may be affected by anxiety
disorders during their lifetime (Bandelow, 2015). Since one-third of our lives are spent in an
office, job satisfaction becomes an important qualifier of how much a company values the
mental health of its employees.
With COVID-19, screen times have increased, meetings last longer and even though
employees are with their families and there is no commute time, they find it difficult to
connect with them as work seems to go on 24x7 as the employees are always available.
Hence, it is imperative that companies recognize the needs of the hour and create a holistic,
productive and co-operative environment for their employees.

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 METHODOLOGY

Our research comprises of primary and secondary research, wherein the secondary research
took place initially to understand various factors that would affect the employees and vary
their levels of satisfaction across the circumstance that we have considered.
In order to proceed with our main agenda to understand satisfaction levels among
employees before and after the pandemic, we initially extended out a survey with an intent
to capture the perception of the employees based on multiple factors that we had zeroed
down to. We provided our audience with 10 factors which they had to rate on a range of 1
to 5 with 1 being the lowest affecting factor and 5 being highest affecting factor. The factors
that were provided are as follows:
1. Number of working days
2. Working hours across the week
3. Leisure time available
4. Employee engagement activities
5. Average time spent in meetings
6. Peer-to-peer interaction frequency
7. Client engagements at work
8. Wellness initiatives taken by the organization
9. Focus on training & development
10. Compensation & benefits

These factors have been analysed over their overall Job satisfaction levels pre and post
Covid. They have been measured on the Likert scale where these 10 factors are our
independent factors and job satisfaction being our dependent variable.
After receiving the inputs on our survey form, we cleaned the data for any inconsistent
details that may have crept in, then studied the correlation between the factors and the
overall job satisfaction.
Post identification of relevant factors we used linear regression to build the best fit model
for our analysis for both the scenarios pre- and post-Covid.
The link for the floated survey form: https://forms.gle/VznMgZUtJAaanELj9

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 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

After obtaining the required data from our survey floated, we calculated the correlation between
the dependent and independent variables mentioned above, and then proceeded with the analysis
and the variables have been represented in the following ways:

• Number of working days: pre [PRWD]; post [POWD]

• Working hours across the week: pre [PRWH]; post [POWH]
• Leisure time available: pre [PRLT]; post [POLT]
• Employee engagement activities: pre [PREA]; post [POEA]
• Average time spent in meetings: pre [PRAVG]; post [POAVG]
• Peer-to-peer interaction frequency: pre [PRPI]; post [POPI]
• Client engagements at work: pre [PRCE]; post [POCE]
• Wellness initiatives taken by the organization: pre [PRWI]; post [POWI]
• Focus on training & development: pre [PRTD]; post [POTD]
• Compensation & benefits: pre [PRCB]; post [POCB]

Job satisfaction before/pre-COVID is PRJS and post-COVID lockdown is POJS. The entire process with
the codes has been shown in further details.

Demographics of the surveyed population

Gender Diversity

Male
45%

Female
55%

Female Male Others

Surveyed population consists of a good mix of male & female with females contributing to 55% of
the total surveyed population (94 respondents).

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 Age

3 3 13

75

23-24 25-26 27-28 29-30

The surveyed population consists of the majority respondents (75) falling in the age group of
25-26 & 13 respondents falling into age group of 23-24.

Work Experience (In Months)

6
25
21

42

0-12 13-24 25-36 36+

The surveyed population consists of a good mix of different work-experience tenure with
the maximum (42 respondents) falling in the bucket of 25-36 months experience & 25
respondents having an experience of more than 36 months.

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 Pre-COVID scenario Correlation Matrix

Age
WorkE
0.69 x
PRW
-0.12 -0.10 D
PRW
-0.02 0.01 0.25 H
-0.21 -0.01 0.51 0.23 PRLT
0.23 0.34 0.00 0.20 0.05 PREA
PRAV
-0.12 -0.11 0.26 0.16 0.19 -0.10 G
-0.08 -0.12 0.25 0.25 0.17 -0.08 0.84 PRPI
0.36 0.26 0.02 0.21 0.37 0.27 0.20 0.17 PRCE
0.28 0.27 0.22 0.20 0.38 0.10 0.26 0.23 0.69 PRWI
0.23 0.00 0.27 0.25 0.30 0.06 0.18 0.17 0.65 0.69 PRTD
0.02 0.02 0.24 0.30 0.42 0.09 0.33 0.28 0.49 0.60 0.54 PRCB
PRJ
0.03 0.24 0.10 0.45 0.41 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.14 0.27 0.25 0.52 S
12 6 8 2 3 11 10 9 7 4 5 1

Rank

Post-COVID scenario Correlation Matrix

Age
WorkE
0.69 x
POW
0.11 -0.02 D
POW
0.08 0.03 0.81 H
0.19 0.07 0.49 0.65 POLT
-0.02 0.03 -0.10 -0.04 0.17 POEA
POAV
-0.05 0.04 0.15 0.24 0.12 0.25 G
-0.09 -0.06 -0.26 -0.17 0.11 0.55 0.51 POPI
0.10 -0.02 0.91 0.71 0.39 -0.16 0.09 -0.31 POCE
0.00 -0.02 -0.18 -0.11 0.12 0.34 0.00 0.42 -0.20 POWI
-0.01 0.17 -0.01 0.22 0.22 0.51 0.38 0.51 -0.08 0.23 POTD
0.08 0.08 -0.09 -0.02 0.16 0.39 0.07 0.43 -0.14 0.93 0.31 POCB
-0.13 -0.03 -0.07 0.15 -0.03 -0.05 -0.04 0.29 -0.15 0.83 0.39 0.71 POJS
11 7 10 5 6 9 8 4 12 1 3 2

Rank

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 Average Employee Preferences
(1 – Lowest, 5 – Highest)

Pre-COVID scenario

5 4.70
4.01 3.88 3.93
4 3.68 3.50 3.60
3.26 3.13
3 2.71 2.74

Overall job satisfaction

Peer to peer interact...

Client Engagement Ac...

Training and Develo...

Time spent in meet...
Employee engage...

Compensation Benefits
Wellness Initiatives
Leisure Time
Working Days

Working Hours

Post-COVID scenario

5
4.00 4.26 4.00 4.10 4.11
3.87 3.94 3.76
4 3.64 3.43
3.27
3

0
Employee engagement...

Client Engagement Ac...

Average time spent ...

Compensation Bene...
Peer to peer interac...

Overall Job Satisfac...

Training and Devel...
Wellness Initiatives
Working Hours

Leisure Time
Working Days

Average overall job satisfaction in the post COVID scenario has increased in our surveyed
population as it gained 0.18 points now reaching a score of 4.11. This can be attributed to
the flexible working options which were provided to employees by their organizations.
Employees also acknowledged that spending more time with their family further boosted
the employee’s happiness.
Employees have also started giving more importance to factors such as Wellness Initiatives,
Peer to Peer engagement activities, Working Hours and Learning & Development activities.
These factors show the shift in employee’s mindset on what contributes to job satisfaction
in this pandemic world.

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 LEARNINGS

As expected, the mindset of the employees has changed post impact of the COVID-19
pandemic. There has been a shift in their behaviour and the factors which they deem
important for overall job satisfaction.
The working model for most of the companies, especially IT and consulting, saw a shift to
the WFH model, where the employees observed an increase in flexibility and more time
with their family members. This might be one of the reasons employees didn’t refrain from
putting in extended hours, thus its importance reduced in the post pandemic era.
Wellness initiatives taken by the companies to ensure the well being of their employees was
bound to gain much more relevance in the post covid era. The pandemic made everyone
realise the importance of health, both physical and mental well-being became equally vital.
Therefore, it become imperative for the employees to know what initiatives a company is
taking to ensure that its most vital asset, the employees, are in a healthy frame of mind and
are covered for any kind of adversities.
Another factor which gained a lot more importance was peer to peer interaction and
learning. Prior to the pandemic, it can be implicitly said that employees were working in an
environment where this factor was somewhat taken for granted. With the onset of the
pandemic, the interactions and learnings took a significant hit. The companies too
recognised this fact and a lot of initiatives were taken to improve employee engagement
activities and peer to peer interactions. Hence, this factor gained significant importance in
the post pandemic era and has started to play a vital role in overall job satisfaction.
One of the most important things that we have learnt during these unprecedented times is
learning new things and innovating day in and day out are imperative to sustain in these
ever-changing times. During the pandemic, technological disruptions came to our rescue
and hence the companies started investing heavily in their Information and Technology
vertical. Reskilling and upskilling the employees became a lot more relevant so that they too
could adapt to the changing technologies. Therefore, it is no surprise that Learning and
Development to gained importance during these times.
Employee Value Proposition and Benefits & Compensation will continue to play a vital role in
determining the overall job satisfaction of the employees. Flexible plans and rewarding the
employees appropriately for the work that they are doing for the organisation will prove to
be profitable for the both. Organisations do recognise this fact and are continue to look for
ways to increase their employee value proposition. Thus, the importance of this factor
didn’t change much even in the post covid era.
Client Engagement Activities and Leisure Time dropped in ranking significantly in this new
world, which maybe attributed to WFH paradigm.

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 Correlation Between Overall Employee Satisfaction & Relevant Factors

Pre COVID scenario:

Post COVID scenario

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 Rank Pre Covid
Employee engagement activities 10
Average time spent in meetings 9
Peer to peer interaction time 8
Working Days 7
Client Engagement Activities 6
Training and Development 5
Wellness Initiatives 4
Leisure Time 3
Working Hours 2
Compensation Benefits 1

Rank Post Covid

Employee engagement activities 8
Average time spent in meetings 7
Peer to peer interaction time 4
Working Days 9
Client Engagement Activities 10
Training and Development 3
Wellness Initiatives 1
Leisure Time 6
Working Hours 5
Compensation Benefits 2

Change in employee preferences due to COVID

5 4
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 Rank Movement of the various parameters:

Rank Pre Rank Post

Parameter Movement Comments
Covid Covid
Compensation Benefits 1 2 -1 Minor Change

Working Hours 2 5 -3 Lost significance somewhat

Leisure Time 3 6 -3 Lost significance somewhat

Gained a lot more
Wellness Initiatives 4 1 3
importance
Training and Development 5 3 2 Minor Change

Client Engagement Activities 6 10 -4 Lost importance significantly

Working Days 7 9 -2 Minor Change

Gained a lot more
Peer to peer interaction time 8 4 4
importance
Average time spent in meetings 9 7 2 Minor Change
Employee engagement
10 8 2 Minor Change
activities

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Our objective for this project was to understand the implication of the pandemic on the
level of job satisfaction and identifying the critical factors that can be worked upon by
Human Resource Managers to help in simultaneous growth of the organisation and its
employees. We see that as there has been a sudden rise towards the focus on wellness,
mental and physical wellbeing, proper demarcation of working duration and support from
the organisation in terms of specialized trainings, new interaction platforms to enable not
only at peer-peer/colleague-colleague level but also across cross functional teams.
Therefore, we have come up with the following set of recommendations that will help the
companies to increase their employee value proposition:

1. A clear set of expectations from both the higher management as well as the
employee will help establishing a stronger work-ethic in times when working from
different locations will become the new normal.
2. Organisation collaboration can be established with technologies such as IoT- Internet
of Things. This will enable the employees to work with cross functional teams by
providing better overview of varied projects and bring in many more perspectives
which would thereby increase productivity.
3. In the post Covid-19 time we can see the increased dependency of job satisfaction
on factors such as wellness initiatives for employees. It was one of the concerning
factors pre-Covid as well but has become all the more important in the times to
follow. Therefore, organisations have to start investing heavily in this direction and

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 showcase their concern for the well-being of their employees, by caring for them,
starting wellness programs and providing them health benefits in the form of
medical insurance and other wellness initiatives.
4. Organizations must also invest in L&D opportunities for their employees as remote
training & learning is being widely adopted due the rapid growth of platforms such
as Coursera, UpGrad etc. This will also ease the process of upskilling and reskilling.

LIMITATIONS OF OUR STUDY

There are a few limitations to our study despite our dedicated efforts. They are as follows:
 The sample size is relatively small with 94 entries from students of MDI Gurgaon and
individuals from workplaces and institutions we could reach out to, which may
hamper the success of our research
 The data comprises mostly of those students who have quit their jobs in order to
pursue higher studies. Therefore, the sample has comparatively a smaller number of
individual data who are still associated with organisations or are working
professionals
 The survey could not receive extensive data from people with a work experience > 5
years. Majority respondents had an average work experience of 2 years

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 APPENDIX

Survey Questionnaire

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 REFERENCES

1. https://www2.deloitte.com/mt/en/pages/human-capital/articles/mt-employee-
engagement-and-covid-19.html

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 2. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/
our-insights/covid-19-and-the-employee-experience-how-leaders-can-seize-the-moment
3. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/K-04-2021-0333/full/html
4. https://hbr.org/2021/10/how-companies-can-improve-employee-engagement-right-now
5. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/employee-
engagement-tech-key-post-pandemic-success.aspx

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