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The COVID-19 pandemic has changed work life profoundly and concerns regarding the mental well-being of employees’ have arisen. Organizations have made rapid digital advancements and have started to use new collaborative tools such as social media platforms overnight.
Our study aimed to investigate how professional social media communication has affected work engagement before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of perceived social support, task resources, and psychological distress as predictors and moderators of work engagement.
Nationally representative longitudinal survey data were collected in 2019-2020, and 965 respondents participated in all 4 surveys. Measures included work engagement, perceived social support and task resources, and psychological distress. The data were analyzed using a hybrid linear regression model.
Work engagement remained stable and only decreased in autumn 2020. Within-person changes in social media communication at work, social support, task resources, and psychological distress were all associated with work engagement. The negative association between psychological distress and work engagement was stronger in autumn 2020 than before the COVID-19 outbreak.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted pressure on mental health at work. Fostering social support and task resources at work is important in maintaining work engagement. Social media communication could help maintain a supportive work environment.
The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives and work profoundly [
In remote work conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of digital tools and social media platforms has increased at work for information and document creation, sharing, and exchange and for video meetings and discussions [
Work engagement, a key positive motivational state of well-being at work, is a comprehensive and enduring positive mental state that employees experience at their workplace and consists of three dimensions: vigor (ie, high energy levels, mental resilience, and persistence), dedication (ie, a sense of significance and pride), and absorption (ie, deep concentration on work and challenges detaching from work) [
According to job demands-resources model, work engagement is particularly driven by job resources, which are positive psychological, physical, social, and organizational characteristics of work, such as a good organizational climate and social support from colleagues and supervisors, which help employees accomplish work goals and foster learning and personal growth [
Based on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, people tend to obtain and protect valuable resources, and loss of resources plays a significant role in the development of psychological stress [
The COVID-19 pandemic, along with its associated increase in digital and remote work, has potentially transformed ways of working for good [
According to the COR theory [
Social media communication at work has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic [
This longitudinal study analyzed changes in work engagement among employees in Finland before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study investigated whether changes in social media communication at work, perceived social support, task resources, and psychological distress are related to changes in employees’ work engagement, especially at a time of a prolonged pandemic. We proposed the following hypotheses: (1) increased social media communication predicts an increase in work engagement; (2) increased perceived social support and task resources at work predict an increase in work engagement; (3) increased psychological distress predicts decreased work engagement; and (4) the association between work engagement and (i) social media communication, (ii) social support, and (iii) psychological distress have been stronger during rather than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Data from a 4-timepoint longitudinal survey on social media usage at work in Finland from 2019 to 2020 were acquired to represent the working population in Finland. The first survey was conducted in March to April 2019 (timepoint 1 [T1]; n=1817). The participants were recontacted in September to October 2019 (timepoint 2 [T2]; n=1318), March to April 2020 (timepoint 3 [T3]; n
The final sample in this study (n=965; 45.08% female; mean age 44.97 years, SD 11.36 years) included respondents who answered all 4 surveys, and the response rate was 53.11%. We found no major bias when conducting nonresponse analyses and when comparing the sample with official census figures of the working population in Finland [
We measured the frequency of social media usage for work-related communication by asking the question, “How often do you use social media to keep in touch with your colleagues or work community regarding work-related matters (eg, sharing information or agreeing on timetables)?” We measured the frequency of social media usage for nonwork-related communication by asking the question, “How often do you use social media to keep in touch with your colleagues or work community regarding nonwork-related matters?” Possible answers were 0=“I don’t use it,” 1=“less than weekly,” 2=“weekly,” 3=“daily,” and 4=“many times a day.” Both social media communications were measured at every time point; that is, every 6 months.
Work engagement is most often measured using the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) [
Perceived social support at work was measured using 4 questions on social support received from colleagues, supervisors, and the work community in general. These questions originate from the second version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (
Task resources were measured using 4 questions from the work organization and job content dimension of the second version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (
We measured psychological distress using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire [
Sociodemographic variables considered herein included age, gender, and education. All background variables were assessed at every timepoint; that is, every 6 months.
As descriptive statistics, we expressed data as mean (SD) values for continuous study variables and frequencies and proportions for categorical variables (
For all our hypotheses, we analyzed whether the within-person variation in social media communication, perceived social support, task resources, and psychological distress predicted changes in work engagement. We tested our hypotheses using a hybrid (or within-between) linear regression model [
Descriptive statistics of the study variables: continuous variables.
Variables |
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Time | Within-person differences, SD | ||||
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Range | T1, mean (SD) | T2, mean (SD) | T3, mean (SD) | T4, mean (SD) |
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Work engagement | 0-54 | 38.78 (12.13) | 39.08 (12.15) | 39.29 (11.64) | 38.42 (12.04) | 5.35 | |
Work-related social media communication | 0-4 | 1.27 (1.21) | 1.31 (1.19) | 1.52 (1.21) | 1.51 (1.25) | 0.69 | |
Nonwork-related social media communication | 0-4 | 1.16 (1.06) | 1.10 (0.99) | 1.24 (1.06) | 1.18 (1.01) | 0.59 | |
Social support | 4-20 | 14.65 (2.86) | 14.56 (2.87) | 14.68 (2.91) | 14.65 (3.01) | 1.49 | |
Task resources | 4-20 | 13.89 (2.76) | 13.98 (2.74) | 14.03 (2.63) | 13.90 (2.70) | 1.31 | |
Psychological distress | 12-48 | 24.89 (6.21) | 24.14 (5.60) | 24.26 (5.29) | 24.19 (5.53) | 3.32 | |
Age in T1 (years) | 18-64 | 43.52 (10.86) | N/Aa | N/A | N/A | N/A |
aN/A: not applicable.
Descriptive statistics of the study variables: categorical variables.
Variables | Values | |
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Coding | Number of participants, n (%) |
Femalesa | 0/1 | 379 (43.7) |
Basic education | 0/1 | 26 (3.0) |
Secondary degree | 0/1 | 429 (49.4) |
aNumber of participants at each time point (T1-T4)=868; total number of observations (T1+T2+T3+T4)=3472.
Our analysis proceeded in 2 steps. Model 1 included all our within-person and between-person main effects and a random intercept. For work-related and nonwork-related social media communication, perceived social support, task resources, and psychological distress, the effects were estimated as within- and between-person effects. For time, we estimated only within-person effects. Time was included as binary variables (T2-T4) with T1 as a reference category. Gender, age, and education at T1 were added to the model as between-person variables, as they varied only between persons.
To test our hypothesized moderation effects, within-person interaction terms including work-related and nonwork-related social media communication, perceived social support, task resources, and psychological distress at T4 were added to the model; Schunck [
Within-between models predicting changes in work engagement with time: fixed effects.
Variables | Model 1 | Model 2 | ||||||||
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B (SE) | B (SE) | ||||||||
Constant | 4.84 (3.82) | .21 | 3.99 (3.89) | .31 | ||||||
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T2 (reference: T1) | 0.08 (0.26) | .75 | 0.11 (0.26) | .68 | |||||
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T3 (reference: T1) | 0.08 (0.28) | .77 | 0.10 (0.28) | .71 | |||||
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T4 (reference: T1) | – |
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2.69 (1.31) |
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Work-related social media communication |
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Nonwork-related social media communication | 0.11 (0.17) | .50 | 0.12 (0.17) | .48 | |||||
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Social support |
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Task resources |
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Psychological distress | – |
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– |
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Females |
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Basic education | –1.97 (1.87) | .29 | –1.97 (1.87) | .29 | |||||
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Secondary degree | –0.11 (0.54) | .84 | –0.11 (0.54) | .84 | |||||
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Age at T1 (years) |
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Work-related social media communication | 0.44 (0.39) | .26 | 0.44 (0.39) | .26 | |||||
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Nonwork-related social media communication |
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Social support |
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Task resources |
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Psychological distress | – |
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– |
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Psychological distress at T4 | N/Ab | N/A | – |
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aValues in italics are significant.
bN/A: not applicable.
Within-between models predicting changes in work engagement with time: random effects.
Variables | Model 1 | Model 2 |
Intercept, variance (95% CI) | 52.49 (45.37-60.73) | 52.52 (45.40-60.76) |
Log pseudolikelihood | –11753.96 | –11748.44 |
The results of descriptive statistical analysis are shown in
Between-person differences in nonwork-related social media communication (Β=1.35; Cohen
Among our moderations (model 2), only the interaction effect between T4 and psychological distress was significantly related to work engagement (Β=–0.14;
This study longitudinally investigated how social media communication at work predicts work engagement. Our theoretical and empirical model was based on the job demands-resources model and COR theory and considered the role of social support and task resources at work, along with psychological distress. Our results show that work engagement remained stable and only decreased in autumn 2020. Within-person changes in social media communication at work, social support, task resources, and psychological distress were associated with work engagement. Moreover, work engagement decreased during autumn 2020 when psychological distress had a stronger negative association with work engagement compared to that before the COVID-19 outbreak.
Our findings partly support hypothesis 1 and fully support hypothesis 2, thus demonstrating that more intensive work-related social media communication and higher perceived social support and task resources are associated with higher within-person work engagement. Nonwork-related communication with colleagues, perceived social support, and task resources were associated with between-person work engagement. However, within-person changes in nonwork-related social media communication did not predict changes in work engagement. Women and older people experienced higher work engagement, as reported previously for individuals in Finland and Europe [
Increased psychological distress was associated with reduced within-person work engagement, thus supporting hypothesis 3. Our results do not support hypotheses 4-i and 4-ii as the associations between work engagement and social media communication, perceived social support, and task resources did not change during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results partly support hypothesis 4-iii because the within-person association between psychological distress and work engagement was stronger during the COVID-19 pandemic (ie, autumn 2020).
Our study is timely and the first one to offer longitudinal evidence regarding internal and external social media communication, both work-related and nonwork-related, in organizations and the related well-being implications, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings revealed that work engagement remained considerably state at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic during spring 2020. Hence, our results provide interesting insights and are in contrast with those of prior studies reporting that major disasters usually provoke stress and reduce resources [
Increased psychological distress was associated with reduced work engagement in the within-person model, which is in line with prior reports on stress and social media use [
The significant role of various job resources in work engagement construction has been established in prior studies and in the context of social media [
Our findings have practical implications for organizations by demonstrating that work engagement decreased during autumn 2020, while psychological distress was stronger at that timepoint. Employees continued to work under uncertain conditions in autumn 2020 with no certain signs of future relief. Thus, providing mental health support for employees in such situations is crucial. The importance of supervisor support in alleviating employees’ emotional exhaustion and feelings of uncertainty regarding COVID-19 has been previously reported [
Increased nonwork-related social media communication did not explain within-person variation in work engagement. We observed only between-person differences because those with high nonwork-related social media communication also had a higher level of work engagement on average. Employees who use social media actively for informal communication are also the ones who engage more in their work. This is because when engaged, employees invest energy into their work-related roles and therefore behave more proactively [
Moreover, increased social support and task resources were related to enhanced within-person and between-person work engagement. The results emphasize the importance of supporting employees in using their expertise, maintaining a sense of meaningfulness, providing possibilities to influence their work content and load, and offering and receiving social support.
We used a longitudinal, nationally representative sample, which enabled the analysis of timepoints before and during the COVID-19 crisis and the related effects on well-being, which can regard as one of the strengths of this study. The response rate was high, and our survey included a very limited number of missing observations. The study design with work-related and nonwork-related social media communication was novel, and a similar longitudinal study has not been performed before. The study was conducted with employed people in Finland and did not examine the COVID-19 crisis cross-nationally. Because this was an observational study, the associations reported herein should not be directly interpreted as causal relationships. Some effect sizes were low, but effect sizes for the main results remained significant even though our model was adjusted for a number of factors. This study was also limited to self-reported information.
Work engagement decreased during autumn 2020 at a time when psychological distress had a stronger negative association with work engagement. Social media communication at work, perceived social support, and task resources were also associated with higher work engagement. Overall, work engagement remained relatively stable during the COVID-19 crisis. However, providing mental health support during a prolonged crisis is crucial for organizations. Moreover, supporting employees’ resources at work is important in maintaining employee work engagement, in which social media communication can be of help.
Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II Interpersonal relations and leadership dimension.
Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II Work organization and job contents dimension.
Correlation matrix.
Conservation of Resources
Utrecht Work Engagement Scale
The Finnish Work Environment Fund (Professional Social Media Use and Work Engagement Among Young Adults Project, project number 118055 PI: Atte Oksanen). Data collection was also partly funded by the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Tampere University, Finland.
None declared.