Remote work and changes in work engagement during the coronavirus crisis in spring 2020 among employees in higher education
The purpose of this study is to examine the development of work engagement and its predictors during the lockdown and period of remote work caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The study uses two-month follow-up data, collected from 790 employees of Tampere Universities in April 2020 (T1) and June 2020 (T2). Using a person-centered approach, we utilized latent profile analysis to identify different groups in terms of their level of work engagement and changes therein. We found five longitudinal work engagement profiles with different levels and different kinds of temporal change. Half (50%) of the employees had a high level of work engagement at baseline, which increased during the two-month follow-up period. For about a third (36%) of the employees, work engagement remained the same.