Do Values Matter? Exploring the factors that encourage employees to commit to physical activity during the COVID-19 in relation to their work performance – A Conservation of Resources Perspective.

Keywords: Physical activity, work performance, COVID-19

Abstract: Government-imposed legislation to COVID-19 constricted business to work remotely and students to learn from home. Such widespread restrictions on human activity stimulated an increase in scholarly research in the social sciences. Research productivity increased 35% in the USA within ten weeks of COVID-19 (Cui, Ding, and Zhu, 2020). Still, little is being done to understand why regular engagement in physical activities declined for some and continued for others. We ground this qualitative research on conservation of resources theory (especially, personal resources: cognitive, physical, and affective resources) to determine whether previous experience in teleworking and the personal and organizational resources might have motivated people to continue to engage in physical activities while working from home. Indeed, the unprecedented conditions of COVID-19 require people to utilize their personal resources as efficiently as possible to satisfy job and physical and mental health demands. Our research answer two questions. First, does physical activity pre-pandemic provide non-experienced telecommuters with more resources and better work performance during pandemic? The second question asks, what specific factors motivate them to engage in physical activities during pandemic? We interviewed twenty faculty and staff at York University in Canada. Participants who perceive physical activity, before the pandemic, as an intrinsic value, practiced physical activity during the pandemic, maintained their personal resources, and coped with the pandemic demands. However, participants who are intrinsically motivated to practice physical activity, because of its known benefits from the pre-pandemic experience. They were less engaged in physical activities and lost personal resources due to family and work high demands experience during the pandemic. We conclude that physical activity is indirectly predicting work performance through the mediation role of personal resources. We recommend extending this study to cover gender, financial stability, and culture in two contrasting contexts, during and post-COVID-19.

References Cui, R., Ding, H., & Zhu, F. (2020). Gender inequality in research productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic. arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.10194.