Title: Employees' psychological well-being in a pandemic: a case study during the peak of the COVID-19 wave in India

Authors: Rohit Chauhan; Himanshu Jishtu; Alka Shaktan; Arun Kumar

Addresses: School of Hotel Management and Tourism, Lovely Professional University, Punjab, 144411, India ' School of Hospitality and Tourism, Bahra University, Waknaghat, Himachal Pradesh, 173234, India ' Post Graduate Institute of Behavioral and Medical Sciences, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, 492001, India ' Government Degree College, Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh, 174001, India

Abstract: Subjective wellbeing (SWB) is associated with happiness and life satisfaction. Depression, anxiety and stress represent three different but relating concepts to poor mental health. COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the subjective well-being of employees during the lockdown, especially the employees relating to the tourism industry. Inter-industry and intra-industry comparison of tourism employees' psychological wellbeing during the peak of the second wave of COVID across India was done. Socio-demographic variables were checked separately for psychological wellbeing. Stratified random sampling was used for data collection. Data was collected through an online questionnaire using the WHO-5 wellbeing index and DASS21 scale for depression anxiety and stress during the peak COVID-19 wave. A sample from 93 employees was collected, of which, 55 employees were from the tourism industry. The results indicated that tourism industry employees as a whole and the employees engaged in activities within tourism had poor subjective wellbeing and were depressed and anxious. Depression and anxiety among tourism employees were impacted by gender and job experience. Employers must use the WHO-5 wellbeing index and DASS-21 scale for keeping track of their employees' happiness and life satisfaction and their poor mental health.

Keywords: DASS21; WHO-5; COVID-19; employee subjective wellbeing; tourism employees.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2024.136591

International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 2024 Vol.31 No.1, pp.58 - 75

Received: 04 Mar 2022
Accepted: 07 Jul 2022
Published online: 08 Feb 2024 *

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