Abstract
Dramatic changes in social, economic, and working life have occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes cause stress for employees. Therefore, it is important to implement cost-effective and purposive interventions targeting employee well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of these interventions is Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs). MBIs are generally implemented as a face to face with 8-session program. However, in the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work has been adopted widely by organizations, causing an urgent need for digital well-being interventions. This study aims to investigate effectiveness of digital mindfulness-based interventions on employees' well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. To do this, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on employee well-being will be explained in the first part. In the second part, mindfulness and mindfulness-based interventions will be discussed. In the last part, digital mindfulness interventions and their effects on employee well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic will be clarified.
TopCovid-19 Pandemic And Employee Well-Being
The novel coronavirus illness (COVID-19), which began in Wuhan, China in December 2019, was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020 (Carnevale & Hatak, 2020). Since COVID-19 is a droplet-borne disease, it can be transmitted from person to person through close contact. It can also be transmitted to other people by close contact from people who have COVID-19 disease and do not show symptoms. Social distancing is one of the most important measures used to reduce the spread of the disease, since the drug used for the treatment of the disease is still in the research phase and vaccination studies continue (Yanti et al., 2020).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Remote Work: It is defined as the use of information and communication technologies such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers to carry out the production and services of an organization away from the physical center where that organization is established.
Well-Being: A broad structure which means that individuals feel themselves healthy, happy and satisfied with their life.
Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Interventions which aim to increase the level of state or trait mindfulness with practice of mindfulness mediations, spiritual, physical and mental exercises.
Digital Mindfulness-Based Interventions: A type of mindfulness based interventions which are provided by mobile apps or web-based platforms and which have many advantages such as time and place flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and easily accessible.
Social Distance: Attitudes and behaviors that include reducing people's physical contact in order to prevent the transmission of the disease agent.
COVID-19 Pandemic: It is a pandemic which emerged in Wuhan, China on December 1, 2019. The virus, which is caused pandemic, is called SARS-CoV-2. It is transmitted by air and droplets and causes fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath.
Mindfulness: A mental state or a trait which refers to being aware of the present moment on purpose with nonjudgmentally.