Trajectories of Canadian Workers’ Well-Being During the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Research regarding workers’ well-being over time during COVID-19 has primarily used variable-centered approaches (e.g., ANOVA) to explore changes in negative well-being. However, variable-centered approaches provide insufficient information on the different well-being experiences that diverse workers may have experienced during COVID-19. Furthermore, researchers have understudied positive well-being in workers’ general lives and work during COVID-19. We used latent trajectory analysis, a person-centered analysis, to explore diverse well-being trajectories Canadian workers experienced during the first few months of COVID-19 across distress, flourishing, presenteeism, and thriving at work measures. We hypothesized that: H1) Intragroup differences would be present on each well-being indicator at study onset; H2) Different longitudinal trajectories would emerge for each well-being indicator (i.e., some workers’ scores would get better, some would get worse, and some would remain the same); and H3) Factors at different ecological levels (self, social, workplace, pandemic) would predict membership to the different trajectories. Canadian workers (N = 648) were surveyed March 20-27th, April 3rd-10th, and May 20-27th of 2020. Depending on the well-being indicator, and supporting H1, three to five well-being trajectories were identified. Providing some support for H2, distress and presenteeism trajectories improved over time or stayed stagnant; flourishing and thriving at work trajectories worsened or stayed stagnant. Providing some support for H3, self- (gender, age, disability status, trait resilience), social- (family functioning), workplace- (employment status, financial strain, sense of job security), and pandemic-related (perceived vulnerability to COVID-19) factors significantly predicted well-being trajectory membership. Recommendations for diverse stakeholders (e.g., employers, mental health organizations) are discussed.