Understanding The Challenges of Working From Home During COVID-19 Pandemic and Ways of Coping: The Perspectives of Malay Employees

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). It has led many countries, including Malaysia, to implement Restricted Movement Order (RMO) that aimed for individuals to practice social distancing by staying at home and enforcing employees to work from home (WFH). The implementation of WFH is one of the intelligible efforts that could protect many people from the deadly virus. However, many individuals have complained about their struggles to adjust to the new working environment. Hence, a qualitative study was conducted to explore employees’ experiences as they WFH during the pandemic, particularly in terms of its challenges and coping strategies. A purposive sampling technique was used to recruit the participants, which consisted of five full-time employees from various sectors undergoing WFH. Semi-structured interviews were used as the technique of data collection. Based on the thematic analysis, several themes were discovered to help better understand the challenges faced by the participants and their coping strategies to overcome the difficulties. The themes of challenges discovered were household interruption, limited facilities, communication barriers, adjusting to a new norm, and mental health. At the same time, the themes for the coping strategies were acceptance, communication, social support, employee benefits, and religious beliefs. The findings manifested that the participants in the study were still struggling and probably needed more time to adapt to the new norm of working arrangement.