RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused employees to be mentally absent at work and decreased their motivation and effort when they work collaboratively rather than individually due to the fear of transmission. OBJECTIVES: The study aims to test the effect of fear caused by COVID-19 on levels of presenteeism and social loafing from job tasks of employees. METHODS: Data were collected from 522 white-collar and blue-collar workers in Turkey by the snowball sampling method. Before testing the hypotheses, CFA was performed. Reliability analysis was assessed via Cronbach Alpha (FCV-19Sâ=â0.941; PSâ=â0.713; SLSâ=â0.974), AVE (FCV-19Sâ=â0.686; PSâ=â0.524; SLSâ=â0.725), and CR (FCV-19Sâ=â0.734; PSâ=â0.722; SLSâ=â0.856) values. The mediating effect of fear of COVID-19 within the impact on presenteeism on social loafing was evaluated through Process Macro for SPSS. The coefficients for both direct and indirect effects were calculated in the 95% confidence interval using 5,000 bootstrap replicates. RESULTS: The results show that presenteeism has a significant positive impact on social loafing. Fear of COVID-19 has a statistically significant impact on presenteeism and social loafing. Also, fear of COVID-19 partially mediates within the impact of presenteeism on social loafing in the study. CONCLUSION: Organizations should consider employees' views to increase the level of well-being and productivity. A high level of inventiveness from organizations is compulsory to explore which organizational roles and workflow are at least remotely operated during this period.