Software professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey: Factors affecting their mental well-being and work engagement in the home-based work setting

Abstract

With the COVID-19 pandemic, strict measures have been taken to slow down the spread of the virus, and consequently, software professionals have been forced to work from home. However, home-based working entails many challenges, as the home environment is shared by the whole family simultaneously under pandemic conditions. The aim of this study is to explore software professionals’ mental well-being and work engagement and the relationships of these variables with job strain and resource-related factors in the forced home-based work setting during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online cross-sectional survey based on primarily well-known, validated scales was conducted with software professionals in Turkey. The analysis of the results was performed through hierarchical multivariate regression. The results suggest that despite the negative effect of job strain, the resource-related protective factors, namely, sleep quality, decision latitude, work-life balance, exercise predict mental well-being. Additionally, work engagement is predicted by job strain, sleep quality, and decision latitude. The results of the study will provide valuable insights to management of the software companies and professionals about the precautions that can be taken to have a better home-based working experience such as allowing greater autonomy and enhancing the quality of sleep and hence mitigating the negative effects of pandemic emergency situations on software professionals’ mental well-being and work engagement.