U of G study draws link between pandemic-related anxiety and unethical workplace behaviour

Co-authors Dr. Laurie Barclay and Dr. Annika Hillebrandt discuss the implications of their findings for workplace policy and future ethics research

EMILY BRAY

Do you find yourself slipping up more often at work lately? Maybe doing things you shouldn’t be, like making up excuses to avoid attending your digital work meetings, or taking two hours to complete a task that usually takes you one?

If so, you aren’t alone. Employees around the world are currently struggling to keep up with the expectations put on them in the workplace, and it turns out that fear of COVID-19 might be to blame.

According to a recently-published study by University of Guelph professor Dr. Laurie Barclay, anxiety surrounding COVID-19 can motivate employees to engage in self-interested unethical workplace practices.

The study revealed that pandemic-induced anxiety can cause employees to turn inward and prioritize their own self-interest over accepted workplace norms and standards of ethics. This can motivate them to engage in self-serving behaviours that may be harmful to coworkers or employers—for example, falsifying customer records or reporting inaccurate information to management to make oneself appear more productive.

Barclay, who is also the Lang Chair in Leadership at U of G’s Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics, co-authored the study with Dr. Annika Hillebrandt, a professor in Ryerson University’s HR management and organizational behaviour department. The two say that they were motivated to look into the link between pandemic anxiety and unethical workplace behaviour after observing a marked rise in both phenomena during the spring of 2020.

“At the start of the pandemic we saw that there was this massive increase in anxiety, and at the same time there were a lot of companies struggling with ethical issues—particularly unethical employee behaviour,” said Barclay to The Ontarion.

“So we started to think ‘well, what if these things are linked?’ and began to dig into the topic from there.”

Barclay and Hillebrandt note that previous studies have revealed a connection between environmentally-induced anxiety and criminal behaviour. These studies provided them with a basic framework through which to examine the link between COVID-19 anxiety and unethical workplace practices.

“We already knew from other research that sometimes when people feel anxious they engage in unethical behaviour,” said Hillebrandt.

“Previous studies have examined this link in the context of crime and air pollution. They have found that when people perceive more air pollution and feel anxiety because of it, this may result in higher crime levels. So, we applied this idea to behaviour in the workplace.”

Barclay and Hillebrandt examined data gathered over the course of several months from full-time employees working both in-person and remotely. They found that, when individuals perceived COVID-19 as a threat to their health or financial wellbeing, they also displayed a corresponding tendency to engage in cheating behaviours.

Although this may come as frightening news to concerned bosses, the study has an unexpected bright side. Barclay and Hillebrandt offer employers a glimmer of hope by identifying some useful strategies for mitigating the negative effects of COVID-19 anxiety in the workplace.

In particular, they endorse the use of prosocial messaging by employers as an effective method for discouraging self-serving behaviour amongst employees.

According to Barclay and Hillebrandt, prosocial messages are those that “highlight the meaningful and positive impact that employees' work can have on others.” The presence of these messages in the workplace was found to significantly reduce unethical workplace behaviour, as it led to increased awareness of the negative impact that self-serving behaviour has on others.

Hillebrandt also emphasized the importance of open communication between coworkers.

“Just having these conversations with other people about your own anxiety may help people realize that they aren’t alone and other people are also experiencing anxiety. That alone can help people feel like they aren’t so isolated anymore and that they don’t need to be looking out for only themselves so much,” she said.

“It’s a simple way and a cheap way—but ultimately such a powerful way—for employees to reorient themselves.”

However, both professors emphasize that the implications of these findings extend far beyond just pandemics and the workplace. Their study reveals broader patterns about the relationship between negative environmental stimuli, feelings of anxiety, and bad behaviour.

This means that their framework may be useful in explaining the impact of other stressful events—such as war, periods of political strife, and economic crises—on employees.

“One of the major things that our study revealed is that the anxiety that impacts you outside of the workplace also has an influence on you inside of the workplace. So if we also think about other things creating anxiety, those things can impact our behaviour in professional spaces as well,” said Barclay.

She points to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine as an example.

“I fully expect that the conflict in Ukraine is impacting some people’s anxiety levels as well, which has implications for workplace behaviour. Particularly when people are wondering whether this will spark a third world war and things like that. You can’t just leave those fears at the door when you walk into the workplace. So that would absolutely be a good area for future research.”

The study also serves to shed light on unethical academic conduct amongst students, which many believe is on rise as a result of the pandemic.

“We saw a rise in unethical behaviour in many places during the pandemic and a lot of different academic integrity issues came up, particularly as students moved to at-home exams and the use of Respondus,” said Barclay.

Respondus is an internet browser that students are often required to use when taking online exams. It is meant to prevent cheating by locking down students’ computers so that they cannot open external applications or pages. However, students have nonetheless found ways to circumnavigate Respondus’ anti-cheating mechanisms.

“Though we didn’t measure [academic misconduct] in the study, I definitely think that our results translate to it. When you’re feeling anxious, that really narrows your attention to focus on yourself. We focus on protecting ourselves and that makes us self-interested. When it comes to things like exams, that self-interest might make us want to try to perform better than we otherwise would by cheating,” said Barclay.

Barclay and Hillebrandt’s findings have opened up many new doors for future research—a fact that both professors are pleased about.

“That was really our purpose [with the study]. We didn’t want to create something that would explain this one phenomenon and that’s it. We wanted to find deeper underlying philosophies that can explain different kinds of behaviour,” said Hillebrandt.

Barclay echoed the sentiment. “How can we actually manage anxiety across personal and professional domains effectively? I think that would be a really good question to ask in future research.”

Professor Laurie Barclay of the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics. CREDIT: LAURIE BARCLAY