Quality of working life of professors in times of social distancing

INTRODUCTION: Quality of working life consists in a dynamic management of physical, technological, and sociopsychological factors that affect culture and renovate the organizational climate, reflecting on workers’ wellbeing. OBJECTIVES: To identify changes in eating habits, physical activity, and hours of sleep, as well as their influence on the quality of working life of professors who shifted to remote working during the pandemic. METHODS: This study has a quantitative, descriptive, observational design and was performed with faculty members of a private higher education institution in May 2020; 40 professors participated in our research. We used a virtual questionnaire containing Walton’s quality of working life scale (1973) and questions on lifestyle habits. RESULTS: We observed that changes in lifestyle habits were correlated with lower or higher perceptions of satisfaction with the 4 evaluated criteria referring to quality of life: working conditions, use of capacities at work, social interaction at work, and the space work occupies in life. CONCLUSIONS: The mean quality of working life score of faculty members working remotely during lockdown demonstrated that, despite changes in work and lifestyle habits, professors still maintained a certain degree of satisfaction with the aspects of work evaluated in this study.