Impact of Covid-19 Fear on Employee Performance

Covid-19, also called a new type of coronavirus, emerged in Wuhan, China and spread rapidly to the world. Differing from other epidemics with its mortality rates and spreading rate, Covid-19 continues to exert its effects on psycho-social health as well as physical health and deeply affects human behavior. For, although many measures are taken to prevent the virus, it causes significant fear and anxiety in people's daily lives. These fears and worries also manifest themselves in business life, which covers a significant part of human life, and have negative impacts on many behaviors, from the way employees do business to their performance, and from their job satisfaction to quitting job. In this context, the study aims to determine the effect of Covid-19 fear on employee performance. For this purpose, "Covid-19 Fear Scale" and "Employee Performance Scale" were administered to 223 employees. The results obtained indicate that the employees have high levels of fear of Covid-19; It shows that there is a negative, moderate and significant correlation between fear of Covid-19 and employee performance. In addition, it was concluded that the fear of Covid-19 significantly predicted employee performance.

Keywords: Covid-19, Pandemic, Employee Performance

Covid-19, also called a new type of coronavirus, emerged in Wuhan, China and spread rapidly to the world. Differing from other epidemics with its mortality rates and spreading rate, Covid-19 continues to exert its effects on psycho-social health as well as physical health and deeply affects human behavior. For, although many measures are taken to prevent the virus, it causes significant fear and anxiety in people's daily lives. These fears and worries also manifest themselves in business life, which covers a significant part of human life, and have negative impacts on many behaviors, from the way employees do business to their performance, and from their job satisfaction to quitting job. In this context, the study aims to determine the effect of Covid-19 fear on employee performance. For this purpose, "Covid-19 Fear Scale" and "Employee Performance Scale" were administered to 223 employees. The results obtained indicate that the employees have high levels of fear of Covid-19; It shows that there is a negative, moderate and significant correlation between fear of Covid-19 and employee performance. In addition, it was concluded that the fear of Covid-19 significantly predicted employee performance.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Covid-19, Pandemic, Employee Performance