COVID-19 and employee productivity in the public sector

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 has affected the public sector significantly. However, since it is a recent event, its impact on employee productivity, especially the individual and organisational outcomes, is not well-studied. Using the 2020 data from the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC, n = 96,690), this study analyzes how the Australian Public Service (APS)’s changed working methods during COVID-19, especially the effect of five practices, has affected employee productivity. Findings suggest that team adaption, team effort, and organisational adaptation are positively associated with employee productivity, whereas managerial support and proactiveness are negatively associated with employee productivity. Interestingly, while the team effort has significantly enhanced the perceived productivity of employees, the proactiveness of the organisation to maintain new working methods led to a negative impact on productivity. This is surprising and indicative of the positive and negative impacts of the pandemic on employee productivity. A crucial implication of these findings is that intra-organisational responses to COVID-19, including at the team level and managerial level, have affected employee productivity in the public sector.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• employee productivity
• Australia
• public organisations
• categorical analaysis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We thank anonymous reviewers and Co-Editor-in-Chief Prof. James L. Perry for their outstanding feedback, which significantly improved our article. The first author (Hyesong Ha) appreciates the international conference invitations from the 2022 Korean Association of Public Administration (KAPA) and the 10th Asian Management Research and Case Conference (AMRC) to present this article. The third author (Mehmet Akif) appreciates continuous and excellent support from Thomas Chan Hean Boon, Ong Bee Leng, Sharon Ho, Diana Endang, Beiqi Chen, and Evelyn Lee from the Research Support Unit and Alvyn Lim from the Executive Education at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and Er Siew Ming, Grace Lim, and Janna Abdikyerim. We are responsible for any remaining errors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. An anonymous reviewer pointed out that emotional demand is subjective and can be high even if the actual amount of work is low or vice versa. Since no actual workloads data associated with COVID-19 are available, we use the APSC 2020ʹs current workloads question: “What best describes your current workload? (From 1 = below capacity to 5 = well above capacity (too much work)).” The results from the sensitivity analysis with this variable are similar to those reported here, showing the robustness of our estimation. Results are available upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hyesong Ha

Hyesong Ha is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy (GSPP), Nazarbayev University. Prior to joining GSPP, Dr. Ha was a Research Associate at the O’Neill School of Public Affairs, Indiana University and held positions of an Adjunct Faculty and a Research Associate at the Center for Future Government Studies (CFGS) at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. He is an expert on public management, organisational behaviour and theory, policy analysis, data analytics, and quantitative methods. His work has been published at the Australian Journal of Public Administration, European Journal of Training and Development, and Lex Localis among others.

Aarthi Raghavan

Aarthi Raghavan is a Senior Research Analyst in India and engaged in policy research and advocacy for the South Asia and Southeast Asia region. Her academic interests include public sector innovation, with a focus on future of work, technology adoption in governments and citizen-centric governance models. Her articles have been published at the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Sustainability, and The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant, among others. She has been selected for the Asia House Fellowship for 2022-23.

Mehmet Akif Demircioglu

Mehmet Akif Demircioglu is an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore. In Fall 2022, he will be joining the faculty at the Carleton University, The School of Public Policy and Administration. His work has appeared in Research Policy, Journal of Technology Transfer, Public Administration, Public Management Review, Governance, Public Administration Review, ARPA, Government Information Quarterly, Industrial and Corporate Change, Public Performance & Management Review, Policy and Society, ROPPA.