COVID-19 and Work-Life Balance: What about Supervisor Support and Employee Proactiveness?

Rajendra Kumar and Uma Mohan Mokashi, “COVID-19 and Work-Life Balance: What about Supervisor Support and Employee Proactiveness?”, Annals of Contemporary Developments in Management & HR (ACDMHR), Print ISSN: 2632-7686, Online ISSN: 26327694, pp. 1-9, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1st November 2020, Published by International Association of Educators and Researchers (IAER), DOI: 10.33166/ACDMHR.2020.04.001, Available: http://acdmhr.theiaer.org/archive/v2/v2n4/p1.html. Research Article


Introduction
Workplaces have been consistently evolving (Smithikrai & Suwannadet, 2018), and global issues like COVID-19 Pandemic have furthered these changes (Ratten, 2020). Due to this Pandemic, most of the workforce globally were made to work from home (Waizenegger et al., 2020), what seemingly it has affected is the work-life balance. This Pandemic has disturbed the conventional official and non-official work patterns, making it difficult for employees worldwide to suffer a monumental disbalance in their lives (Anwer, 2020). This, in particular to academia, made life miserable for both teaching and non-teaching staff members (Hall et al., 2020). Resultantly, there are challenges faced by organizational scientists to unearth answers to help address these issues.
Moreover, if the outbreak is to continue, it will further damage the work-life balance amongst individuals globally. Therefore, the authors assume this is worthy of empirical attention. Traditionally, it is stated that support at work becomes key (Hutchins & Wang, 2008). For example, facilitation, support, and recognition from the immediate supervisor is seemed empirically vital in boosting individual behaviors and outcomes (Gordon et al., 2019;Aydin & Kalemci Tüzün, 2019;Sangakala et al., 2016). We speculate based on these evidences that supervisor support may turn to be even more vital in tackling challenges faced by employees, particularly in balancing the work-life issues during COVID-19. However, no evidence is available to confirm this link. Accordingly, the current study also asserts that proactive work behavior can be another critical prospect to tackle the negative consequences of pandemics. Few empirical traces can be underlined, hinting towards the critical role of proactive behavior towards influencing and interacting work-life balance and its association with different factors (Lau et al., 2018). However, scholars are yet to confirm the direct effect of proactive work behavior on work-life balance in a crisis like COVID-19. Following this, to what length proactive work behavior of employees can help them to make the most of supervisor support to enhance work-life balance also remains a mystery. Therefore, the current study examines these critical links in an academic setting whereby teaching and non-teaching staff members are going through tough times, affecting their work-life balance.

Theoretical Standpoint
Conservation of resources theory (COR) (Hobfoll, 1989) conceptualizes the framework for the present study. The theory is well suited to explain the direct and moderating relationships conceptualized in the present study. According to this, individuals conserve resources that supports their wellbeing. Furthermore, the theory also asserts that individuals appreciate resources that help them to further capitalize upon the available resources to improve their wellbeing. COR is applied by prominent studies investigating supervisor support, job autonomy, and work-life balance.

Work-Life Balance
The term work-life balance (WLB) denotes how individuals see and experience working well with professional and personal responsibilities in consonance with the personal lifestyle, values, and goals (Haar, 2013). Work-life balance is a concept gaining accelerated importance and realization amongst individuals (Bouzari & Karatepe, 2020;Kelliher et al., 2019;Barber et al., 2019). Work-life balance has a significant role in boost quality of work (Bhende et al., 2020), satisfaction, and psychological well-being (Haider et al., 2018), employee commitment (Hofmann & Stokburger-Sauer, 2017), social life (Ola et al., 2019) and so forth. Importantly, scholars have identified the scarcity of research on the topic of work-life balance (e.g., Haar et al., 2019) whereby, limited studies have attempted to investigate how to predict WLB during the times of crisis such as COVID-19 Pandemic. The authors speculate that growing work pressures and changing work prospects require an understanding of maintaining work-life balance (Hite & McDonald, 2020;Darwish et al., 2020) to offer a way out for both organizational practitioners and social scientists.

Supervisor Support
Any level of support at the organizational level has always remained significant for employee behaviors and outcomes (Gigliotti et al., 2019;Umrani et al., 2019). Supervisor support refers to facilitation, recognition, and appreciation by the workplace (Eisenberger et al., 1986). Supervisor support has received much prominence for its significant contribution towards harnessing employee and organizational outcomes. Studies have therein reported that support, troubleshooting, and appreciation by supervisors can help improve the achievement of the individual and organizational goals. For instance, Idowu and Ndidiamaka (2018) tested and found a significant relationship between supervisor support and employee performance. The study confirmed that organizations could help employees to achieve the best for them by providing them with effective supervisors at work.
Furthermore, a recent study by Winarto and Chalidyanto (2020) indicated a significant relationship between supervisor support and employees` job satisfaction. The finding is another evidence confirming the importance of supervisor support at work. In connection to work-life balance, Haar et al. (2019) www.acdmhr.theiaer.org concluded that when supervisor support serves subordinates mainly through work problems and times when they are needed to achieve organizational tasks, they help employees to cope up with their official and non-official engagement, thus enhancing work-life balance. Similar was also supported by Talukder et al. (2018). Based on this empirical assertion, we speculate that supervisor support during COVID-19 to overcome work challenges and appreciate their efforts during the critical times will positively enable employees to enhance their work-life balance. Thus, we posit: H1: Supervisor support positively relates to work-life balance.

Proactive Work Behavior
Proactive work behavior (PWB) is an active, self-initiating approach to actively improve a given situation rather than passively reacting to it (Parker et al., 2010). Proactive work behavior appears to be significant for the individual as well as organizational outcomes. For instance, studies have confirmed the significant role of proactive work behavior towards boosting sales performance, innovation, organizational commitment and so forth (Crant, 1995;Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001;Smithikrai & Suwannadet, 2018). Proactive work behavior brings a unique approach towards work that ignites a sense of commitment and responsibility in the individuals to make a choice to strive for improvement rather than sitting back and waiting for miracles to happen (Belschak & Den Hartog 2010). Notably, apart from the direct influence of proactive work behavior, there appears to be scarce empirical evidence on its moderating potential.
Moreover, there appears to be no study investigating the moderation of proactive work behavior on the relationship between supervisor support and work-life balance. Typically, proactive posture is essential to counter crises (e.g., Fowler et al., 2010), and similar assertions were forwarded to tackle the recent COVID-19 Pandemic (Shin & Lee, 2020) at the organizational level. Though this evidence does not directly connect with individual proactive work behavior yet still, they underline the need and significance of this element to achieve the desired goals. Accordingly, few empirical traces can be underlined, hinting towards the acute role of proactive behavior towards influencing and interacting work-life balance and its association with different factors (e.g., Lau et al., 2018). Therefore, with the underpinning of conservation of resources theory highlighting individuals valuing additional resources to maximize the benefit of available resources (Hobfoll, 1989;2001), we assert that employees` proactive work behavior will help moderate the association between supervisor support and work-life balance. In other words, proactive work behavior of employees will help them to make the most of the support and facilitation they receive from the supervisor(s) to bring more work-life balance in their strict schedules, particularly during COVID-19 Pandemic. Hence, we posit: H2: Proactive work behavior positively relates to work-life balance.
H3: Proactive work behavior moderates the relationship between supervisor support and work-life balance.

Methodology
Structural equation modelling using Smart PLS 2.0 M3 was used in the present study (Ringle et al., 2005). As per the suggested best practice, a two-stage approach was used, i-e measurement model and structural model assessment. The measurement model stage assesses the psychometric properties of the conceptual model, where the structural model tests the strength of the significance of the hypothesized relationships. www.acdmhr.theiaer.org

Sampling
Employees of a private higher education institution were targeted for the present study. The respondents included administrative, non-administrative, technical, and teaching staff members who had at least one direct supervisor. Based on the information from the personnel department, 119 respondents were finalized who were approached via google forms during the period of June to August 2020. The respondents were initially informed through formal channels about the conduct of this study and were also advised of the anonymity of their responses.

Measures
Supervisor support was tested through inspiring a 7-item scale from Lambert (2000). Proactive work behavior was tested via a 3-item scale by Griffin et al. (2007) whereas, a 3-item scale on work-life balance by Haar (2013) was adapted. All the responses were taken on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 as strongly disagree to 5 as strongly agree.

Measurement Model
The model was tested to confirm the psychometric properties of the conceptualized framework. First, the reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the latent variables were assessed. Results in Table 1 show that individual item loadings concluded higher than the suggested threshold of 0.5 (Thompson et al., 1995). Furthermore, the AVE scores also turned higher than the recommended threshold of 0.5 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988). Lastly, the composite reliability scores were also higher than 0.70 threshold (Hair et al., 2016). Henceforth, the present study confirms the psychometric properties of the model to confirm the reliability and convergent validity. We also examined the discriminant validity of the model through testing the square root of AVE scores in a cross-loading table. Results in Table 2 provide further details related to discriminant validity.

Direct Effects
After confirming the psychometric properties of the conceptual model, we tested the significance of the hypothesized relationships. Through applying the bootstrapping approach with 5000 bootstraps, the results confirmed the significance of supervisor support in enhancing work-life balance (β= 0.430475; t= 6.032783; p< 0.000). Similarly, the results also found a significant association between proactive work behavior and work-life balance (β= 0.121261; t= 1.849617; p< 0.01). Thus, hypothesis 1 and 2 were accepted. Table 3 and Figure 2 provides further details.

Moderating Effects
After confirming the direct relationships, the study tested the moderation of proactive work behavior on the relationship between supervisor support and work-life balance. The results found no statistical support for this relationship; hence hypothesis 3 is rejected.

Discussion
The current study attempted to examine some critical links to address the ongoing issue of work-life balance due to COVID-19 Pandemic. Through scholarly support from prior studies, the study tested to outline the prominence of supervisor support in predicting work-life balance. The findings found a strong statistical link confirming some preliminary empirical evidence (Haar et al., 2019;Talukder et al., 2018). The findings suggest that supervisory assistance, troubleshooting, help in troubleshooting, and recognition of efforts put during critical times can help employees make much of space for themselves to maintain work and personal life conveniently, thus predicting work-life balance. Similarly, the study also found a www.acdmhr.theiaer.org significant relationship between proactive work behavior and work-life balance. The results outline lends support to prior studies highlighting the significance of proactive work behavior in predicting employee behavior and outcomes (Crant, 1995;Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001;Smithikrai & Suwannadet, 2018). However, in connection to work-life balance, the findings are novel. The results suggest that employees can make the best at work through being proactive, thus actively completing the required tasks, which helps them to maintain work-life balance. Surprisingly, proactive work behavior failed to moderate the relationship between supervisor support and work-life balance, which is contrary to what was hinted by Lau et al. (2018). Moreover, the interaction effect of proactive behavior also negatively affected its direct association with work-life balance. Since the study found supervisor support to be highly significant in predicting work-life balance (P < 0.000), this could be why proactive work behavior failed to bring any further energy in the association. However, further studies may be conducted before making claims in this regard.

Implications
The study forwards prominent theoretical and practical implications. For theory, the present study has added confirmation to the critical role of resources at work, such as supervisor support and personal resources like proactive work behavior towards predicting employee behaviors and outcomes, supporting the assertions of conservation of resources theory. The study has also confirmed supervisor support and proactive work behavior as notable in predicting work-life balance during crises such as COVID-19 Pandemic. For practice, the findings imply that the supervisory role has a monumental contribution towards assisting their subordinates in managing work and family engagements in a balanced way. Higher education institutes based on this are encouraged to help guide employees holding all such roles to guide, support, assist and counter problems for their subordinates to help them bring a healthy balance in their life, which would ensure they keep striving for the business with vigor and commitment.

Conclusion
The present study tested the associations between supervisor support, proactive work behavior, and work-life balance during the COVID hit a period in a higher education institution in the UK. The study found a significant link between supervisor support and proactive work behavior with work-life balance. However, the study could not find any statistical support for the moderation of proactive work behavior on the supervisor support and work-life balance association.