Job satisfaction while working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic: do subjective work autonomy, work-family conflict, and anxiety related to the pandemic matter?

The imposed lockdown, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, resulted in the rise to a "new normal" of working from home. This study explores how the lockdown and the sudden shift in the working style affected the job satisfaction of employees in India. We examined the relationship of job satisfaction with work autonomy, and determined whether work-family conflict, and anxiety due to COVID-19 are negatively related to job satisfaction amongst employees working from home in India. Through a correlational research design, a total of 211 participants took part in the study, and only 200 of the data, representing a 95% response rate, were eligible for further analysis. The data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling, and the results showed that work-family conflict and anxiety related to COVID-19 have a negative correlation with job satisfaction, while work autonomy had a positive correlation with job satisfaction. Perceived work autonomy, work-family conflict, and anxiety related to the COVID-19 pandemic significantly predicted job satisfaction and accounted for an overall 37.8% of the variance in job satisfaction. The findings of the current study provide valuable insight into the consequences of a pandemic or similar uncontrollable event, and augmented the literature on organizational behavior where most employees are compelled to work remotely, either full-time or part-time. The theoretical and empirical implications of how work-family conflict and anxiety related to the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impact the job satisfaction of employees in India were discussed. Evaluation of the structural relationship (SEM) reveals that the overall exogenous constructs significantly predicted job satisfaction of employees working from home in India during the COVID-19 pandemic.