This paper discusses the mediating effect of work motivation on the influence of work from home (WFH) and job performance during Covid-19 among academicians in public universities in Kelantan. COVID-19 is a global issue, forcing governments around the world to take action to stop the spread of the deadly virus. Most companies have followed government regulations to work from home. However, the effect of WFH on the job performance of employees remains debatable. The WFH discussion is always related to electronic communication. The main shortcoming of electronic communication is its information richness level, defined as the extent to which a medium of communication can create heterogeneity of information content between different frames of reference. Working from home also creates a feeling of isolation among employees, caused by less interaction among employees and their co-workers, supervisors, and manager. There is little research on this topic from a Malaysian perspective, especially from the perspective of academicians in Kelantan. Hence, this study aims to assess the effect of working from home on job performance and how it affects academicians’ performance by using work motivation as mediating variable. A correlational study is selected for this research. The total population of academicians at five (5) Public Institutions of Higher Education (PIHE) in Kelantan is 2059. 322 academicians will be selected as a sample size using stratified sampling as the sampling technique. The researchers will use the non-experimental research and the instrument is a set of established questionnaires from previous studies. The collected data will be analyzed using SPSS version 20. A new research model will be developed from this study which will contribute significantly to business practitioners’ knowledge, especially for the academicians in Malaysia who need to measure the effectiveness of their WFH policy during the pandemic. It can also serve as a fundamental input for governments and companies to decide whether to promote a WFH policy or seek other alternatives.
Afrianty, T. W., Artatanaya, I. G., & Burgess, J. (2021). Working from home effectiveness
during Covid-19: Evidence from university staff in Indonesia. Asia Pacific Management Review.
Andriani, H. (2020), “Effectiveness of large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) toward the new
normal era during COVID-19 outbreak: a mini policy review”, Journal of Indonesian Health Policy and Administration, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 61-65.
Arora, A. K., & Srinivasan, R. (2020). Impact of pandemic COVID-19 on the teaching–learning process: A study of higher education teachers. Prabandhan: Indian Journal of Management, 13(4), 43-56.
Arruda, W. (6). Ways COVID-19 will change the workplace forever. Forbes.
Ayd?n, A., & Tiryaki, S. (2018). Impact of performance appraisal on employee motivation and
productivity in Turkish forest products industry: A structural equation modeling analysis. Drvna industrija: Znanstveni ?asopis za pitanja drvne tehnologije, 69(2), 101–111.
Bakker, A. B., Du, D., & Derks, D. (2019). Major life events in life, work engagement, and
performance: A test of the work-home resources model. Internal Journal of Stress Management, 26(2), 238.
Bastari, A., Eliyana, A., & Wijayanti, T. (2020). Effects of transformational leadership styles on job performance with job motivation as mediation: A study in a state-owned enterprise. Management Science Letters, 10(12), 2883-2888.
Boyatzis, R., & Boyatzis, R. E. (2008). Competencies in the 21st century. Journal of
Management Development.
Bick, A., Blandin, A., & Mertens, K. (2020). Work from home after the COVID-19 Outbreak.
Charoensukmongkol, P., and Phungsoonthorn, T. (2020a), “The interaction effect of crisis
communication and social support on the emotional exhaustion of university employees during the COVID-19 crisis”, International Journal of Business Communication, September 2020.
Charoensukmongkol, P., and Phungsoonthorn, T. (2020b), “The effectiveness of supervisor
support in lessening perceived uncertainties and emotional exhaustion of university employees during the COVID-19 crisis: the constraining role of organizational intransigence”, Journal of General Psychology.
Gogoi, P. (2020). Application of SPSS Programme in the Field of Social Science Research.
International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE). ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-8 Issue-5, January 2020.
Gottlieb, C., Grobovsek, J., and Poschke, M. (2020), “Who can work at home around the
world”, Covid Economics, Vol. 8, pp. 71-91.
Guterresa, L. F. D. C., Armanu, A., & Rofiaty, R. (2020). The role of work motivation as a
mediator on the influence of education-training and leadership style on employee performance. Management Science Letters, 10(7), 1497-1504.
Hamzah, M. F., Abdul Razak, Tengku, M., & Jalil, H. (2021). The Influence of Competency and Job Motivation Among the Islamic Banking Employees in Malaysia: Moderator Effect of Religiosity. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government, 27(3), 309-316.
Huynh, T. (2021). A study on the effect of transformational leadership on work motivation: A
case of employees at small and medium enterprises in Vietnam. Management Science Letters, 11(1), 41-48.
Ibrahim, S. N. L., Rezali, N., & Yunan, Y. S. M. (2021). The challenges of work from
home that affects higher education productivity during COVID-19 outbreak. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 2347, No. 1, p. 020135). AIP Publishing LLC.
Ipsen, C., van Veldhoven, M., Kirchner, K., & Hansen, J. P. (2021). Six key advantages and
disadvantages of working from home in Europe during COVID-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(4), 1826.
Jahanshahi, A. A., Dinani, M. M., Madavani, A. N., Li, J., and Zhang, S. X. (2020), “The distress
of Iranian adults during the Covid-19 pandemic – more distressed than the Chinese and with different predictors”, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, Vol. 87, pp. 124-125.
Kumar, P., Kumar, N., Aggarwal, P., & Yeap, J. A. (2021). Working in lockdown: the
relationship between COVID-19 induced work stressors, job performance, distress, and life satisfaction. Current Psychology, 1-16.
Landau, S., & Everitt, B. S. (2003). A handbook of statistical analyses using SPSS. Chapman and Hall/CRC.
Moretti, A., Menna, F., Aulicino, M., Paoletta, M., Liguori, S. and Iolascon, G. (2020),
“Characterization of home working population during covid-19 emergency: a cross-sectional analysis”, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 17 No. 17, pp. 1-13.
Nisar, T. M., Prabhakar, G., & Strakova, L. (2019). Social media information benefits,
knowledge management and smart organizations. Journal of Business Research, 94, 264-272
Osman, Z., Ismail, Z., Khan, B. N. A., & Alwi, N. H. (2020). Determinants of Work-from-Home
Productivity among Higher Education Institution Employees during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Malaysia. ASEAN Journal of Open & Distance Learning (AJODL), 1-13.
Politeknik Kota Bharu. (2021). Pengurusan Tertinggi PKB. Retrieved from https://pkb.mypolycc.edu.my/index.php/ms/pengurusan-tertinggi.
Public Service Department. (2020). Service Circular Number 5 of 2020. Retrieved from:
https://www.jpa.gov.my/en/announcement/1426-service-circular-no-05-2020
Purwanto, A., Asbari, M., Fahlevi, M., Mufid, A., Agistiawati, E., Cahyono, Y., & Suryani, P.
(2020). Impact of Work From Home (WFH) on Indonesian Teachers Performance During the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Exploratory Study. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 29(5), 6235-6244.
Saputra, N., Hayat, H., Ardyansyah, F., Palupiningtyas, D., Khusna, K., & Karneli, O. (2021).
Work-From-Home Productivity In Indonesia: First Time Experience Of Virtual Working During Covid-19 Time. Jurnal Masyarakat dan Budaya, 23(1).
Savi?, D. (2020). COVID-19 and work from home: Digital transformation of the workforce. Grey Journal (TGJ), 16(2), 101-104.
Sultana, U. S., Abdullah, N. E. T. M., Hossain, J., Sherief, S. R., & Andalib, M. L. I. T. W. (2021). Exploring Motivation and commitment on job satisfaction and employee performance in Work from Home (WFH) perspective. Psychology And Education, 58(3), 2411-2424.
Susilo, D. (2020). Revealing the Effect of Work-From-Home on Job Performance during the
Covid-19 Crisis: Empirical Evidence from Indonesia. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government, 26(1), 23-40.
Universiti Malaysia Kelantan. (2021). Staff directory. Retrieved from http://ecomm.umk.edu.my/staff_directory.jsp
Universiti Malaya. (2021). Department. Retrieved from https://apium.um.edu.my/
Universiti Sains Malaysia Kampus Kesihatan. (2021). Directory.usm.my. Retrieved from https://directory.usm.my/
In-Text Citation: (Thani et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Thani, A. K. A., Min, N. M. F. N., Sakarji, S. R., & Ishak, M. A. H. (2022). The Influence of Working from Home on Job Performance among Academicians in Kelantan. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(4), 14–30.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
