Psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic and turnover intention: The moderating effect of employee work engagement

Abstract

The study aimed to understand the relationship between the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and turnover intention and the moderating role of employee engagement. Data were collected via a structured questionnaire through both hand deliveries of printed questionnaires and Google docs from 187 frontline employees in the Ghanaian public sector. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. There exists a positive and significant relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and employee turnover intentions. Out of the three dimensions of work engagement, vigor had a significant negative moderating effect on the relationship between psychological impact and turnover intentions. This implies that the positive effect of the psychological impact of COVID-19 on turnover intentions is minimized, where employees have high levels of energy and mental resilience while working, thus their vigor is high rather than low. The study contributes to literature on employee work engagement by using the Job demands-resources model to unravel the specific dimension of employee engagement that can minimize the negative impact of COVID-19 on employees’ turnover intention in the public sector in a developing country.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• Job demands-resources model
• Turnover intention
• Employee engagement