Occupational stress and remedies amongst supermarket employees during COVID-19

Abstract

How an Icelandic supermarket company (Supermarket A) responded to stress that arose from the COVID-19 Pandemic since occupational stress can be detrimental and costly to organisations/companies. Three research questions were investigated: (1) to explore what types of procedures/mechanisms have already been put into place by Supermarket A to minimise stress levels amongst their employees, (2) explore how individuals feel about stress and work-life balance during COVID-19 and (3) develop remedies/coping mechanisms by identifying the elements/sources of stress found amongst the employees. An explanatory mixed-method design was used to gather data; the qualitative part involved ten participants that participated in an interview, five from the front-line sector and five from the office (able to work from home) sector. The quantitative part involved a survey and had a sample of 137 participants. The results showed that Supermarket A had invested heavily into programmes/interventions that are highly individualised. Moreover, such programmes have been demonstrated to be immensely effective when put into use. However, only half of the participants knew about the programmes. The outcome indicates that there is no need for remedies/coping mechanisms to be implemented; the problem lies with a lack of communication with such programmes/interventions, and thus, more communication channels need to be implemented if the full use of such programmes is to be extracted.Keywords: COVID-19, stress, individualised programmes, lack of communication, costly, highly effective programmes/interventions.