The effect of health gate sterilizer use on work motivation during post-COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of educational staff

Abstract

This study investigates the use of a health gate sterilizer on its impact on the work motivation of education personnel during the post-COVID-19 pandemic. The research method used is an experiment with a pre-test/post-test group design. This research was carried out for 8 weeks on 120 education staff at an educational institution. Education personnel was chosen because of their importance to the education sector in Indonesia after the COVID-19 pandemic was very disrupted. The treatment given is the use of a health gate sterilizer for educational staff to feel safe and comfortable so that they are expected to be motivated in their work. The results showed that there was a significant and positive effect of the use of a health gate sterilizer on the work motivation of educational staff in educational institutions. From this research, it can be concluded that the use of a health gate sterilizer must continue to be used in order to have a positive impact on motivating one’s work because it does provide a sense of security and comfort from the COVID- 19 virus.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the world. The impact that is felt is so detrimental to many parties in various sectors of life, from individuals to larger scales.¹ The health sector is certainly the most disadvantaged and has claimed millions of lives as a result of the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Besides that, other sectors that are adversely affected are the economy, education, and other important aspects.^2,3 The beginning of 2020 is the initial gateway for the COVID-19 virus to enter Indonesia. As a quick response, the government implemented a lockdown policy, then several other policies such as Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB), to the Enforcement of Community Activities (PPKM), with the aim of preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus from spreading.⁴ However, several policies implemented, it has an impact on every individual, especially on mental conditions. The reason is that the COVID-19 virus outbreak continues for a long time so the policies implemented by the government continue so that individuals experience high stress. In addition, daily activities can not be done such as work, study, exercise, and others.⁵ Therefore, it is necessary to find a solution to overcome this problem. One of them is the use of a sterilization booth or health gate sterilizer which functions to kill the COVID-19 virus when individuals enter the sterilization booth.

Of the various sectors that were adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, one of which was Education, which during the COVID-19 pandemic did not run optimally because it was only carried out online.⁶ Meanwhile, education is a very important aspect of the development of a nation. However, the COVID-19 pandemic in recent years has had a tremendous negative impact, especially in the field of education. In the field of education, apart from having an impact on students who are the main subjects in the field of education, other parties who are greatly affected are the education staff as a supporting system which cannot be underestimated.^7,8 This is because education personnel has a very important role in carrying out the dynamics of the learning process in educational institutions.

Educational staff is part of the employees in charge of administration. The immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is the workload that has been left behind during the COVID-19 pandemic, at this time it must be pursued as soon as possible in order to provide good service quality.⁹ However, looking at the huge workload coupled with the current condition, namely the COVID- 19 virus which still feels haunting and has not completely disappeared, the impact education staff does not feel more motivated to complete their work, because they do not feel safe. In addition, the work motivation factor is very important in supporting individuals to complete their work properly and correctly (Lateef, 2020). As revealed by Kanfer (1992); Kanfer et al. (2017) work motivation is a psychological force within the individual and also determines the individual to behavior in a team.^9,10 Then work motivation is also related to the level of individual effort, and the level of persistence in the face of work obstacles. In this case, the workload of the education staff is indeed very heavy because of their backwardness. Thus, work motivation will depend on the amount of effort and cooperation made in the team, of course, will determine a person’s perception of the consequences of the actions taken.

In the context of motivation which is also the cooperation of employees, it was found that most of the employees are interested in establishing and maintaining good communication with several people who work together, and they are also motivated if given the opportunity to show and get recognition from colleagues and of course superiors work.^11,12 In terms of cooperation (cooperative), it is highly believed that the level of interdependence between fellow employees, so that motivation will also arise when working together with a team. It is also believed that by working together more communication will be built, then various information will also be obtained from each other.¹³

In the context of motivation which is also the cooperation of employees, it was found that most of the employees are interested in establishing and maintaining good communication with several people who work together, and they are also motivated if given the opportunity to show and get recognition from colleagues and of course superiors work.^11,12 In terms of cooperation (cooperative), it is highly believed that the level of interdependence between fellow employees, so that motivation will also arise when working together with a team. It is also believed that by working together more communication will be built, then various information will also be obtained from each other.¹³

Given the importance of work motivation for the work of educational staff in rebuilding the education sector in educational institutions, of course, special solutions are needed that can overcome these problems. It should be noted carefully that when this is the post-COVID-19 pandemic period, most people still don’t feel safe and comfortable, so proper steps are needed. Therefore, in this study, researchers examined the use of a health gate sterilizer on its impact on the work motivation of educational staff as parties who also have an important role in educational institutions in rebuilding the dynamics of education as before.

Materials and Methods

This study used a quantitative approach to examine the effect of using a health gate sterilizer on individual work motivation by using a one-group pretest-posttest experimental design.¹⁴ Regarding ethical research permission granted by the Institute for Research and Community Service as an institution that is responsible for the research of lecturers in the university environment. The permit was issued on June 9, 2022, with the number 1248/UN40.LP/PT.01.03/2022.

Participants

Participants in this study amounted to 120 education personnel at higher education institutions. These participants were chosen with consideration because they have offices in one building. Then indeed the health gate sterilizer was placed at the entrance of the building. Therefore, in this research, the sampling technique was the total sampling of the population of education personnel in the same building.

Instruments

In examining the use of a health gate sterilizer that has an impact on work motivation, researchers used an instrument adopted from Victor Vroom in the form of a questionnaire containing 12 questions that assessed the characteristics of the aspects of motives, expectations, and incentives. Using this instrument will be very appropriate because it has characteristics of work motivation that correlate with the current post-pandemic COVID-19 condition.

Procedure

In this study, there were several steps were taken, starting from the subjects filling out the questionnaire instrument before the subjects were given treatment, namely the use of a health gate sterilizer. The treatment given to research on the subject is by using a health gate sterilizer before entering the office building and after leaving the office. The treatment time in this study was for 8 weeks (May-June 2022) with a frequency of five days a week according to office working hours. In the health gate sterilizer, the subject only takes 1-2 minutes. Then when the subject is in the health gate sterilizer, the sensor will automatically detect the object so that it will emit a disinfectant vapor made from herbs and irradiated with an ultraviolet lamp. In the next step, employees who are in the health gate sterilizer must rotate in place three times, this is so that the herbal disinfectant in the form of steam can be spread thoroughly on the individual’s body. After that, employees can leave the sterilization booth. These activities continue to be carried out constantly every working day until the 8th week. At the end of the treatment, the employees fill out the questionnaire instrument again in the post-test stage. The aim is to determine the effect of using a health gate sterilizer on the work motivation of educational staff.

Data analysis

In analyzing the results of the data findings from the effect of using a health gate sterilizer on the work motivation of educational staff during the post-pandemic COVID-19, the total test score of the data collected was calculated using SPSS version 26.0. Then, the test item scores were converted into a standard score (z-score) of the mean of the entire sample (n=120). The total test score for each subject was defined as the average z-score on all items of the questionnaire. A higher z-score indicates a higher effect of the health gate sterilizer. To analyze the data obtained, the experimental research design is statistically through several stages, this is a prerequisite for fulfilling the t-test (effect) of using a health gate sterilizer on motivation educational staff work. Some of the prerequisite stages are the normality test of the data using the onesample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test which produces a significance value of 0.150>0.05 as a probability value, which means the data is normally distributed. The next step is the t-test, namely the paired sample t-test, which will be presented in the results section.

Results

In the results section, the processing and analysis of data based on the previously used questionnaire are presented in the form of Table 1.

Table 1 shows that before the treatment was given, the work motivation of the sample had an average value of 68.23 and a standard deviation of 4.473. Then, after being given treatment, the work motivation of the sample has an average value of 70.05 and a standard deviation of 4.857. There was an increase from before and after being given treatment with an average difference of 1.82. Furthermore, the authors conducted a normality test to determine the approach that can be used to test the hypothesis. The normality test was carried out using the Shapiro-Wilk Test and obtained the Sig value. > 0.05 so that the data is declared normally distributed. The t-test was carried out and can be seen in Table 2. Referring to Table 2, the value of Sig. (2-tailed) of 0.000 on df 119. Value of Sig. (2-tailed) obtained < 0.05. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant effect on the use of a health gate sterilizer on its impact on the work motivation of education personnel during the post-COVID-19 pandemic.

Discussion

The health gate sterilizer used in this study is an innovation made by researchers in the form of a sterilization booth that aims to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This health gate sterilizer has the following functions: sterilizer tool to make everyone sterile from various viruses when entering the area where the place will be active. However, the sterilization booths that are often found today in public places have relatively large spray levels.¹⁵ This means that each is considered less hygienic and effective when exposed directly to everyone who uses it. As a result, the body of someone who uses it will become wet due to exposure to disinfectant liquid when using the sterilization booth.¹⁶ Therefore, the innovation developed is that the sterilization booth can be used continuously by several people.

Table 1.

Description of statistic.

	Mean	Std. Deviation
Pre-	68.23	4.473
Post-	70.05	4.857

Table 2.

Descriptions of statistic.

Pair	df	Sig. (2-tailed)
Pre-Posttest	119	0.000

Then, this health gate sterilizer use a technology that converts the disinfectant liquid into steam (mist) which is herbal based, so it will not cause the user to get wet, and of course, it becomes more effective and hygienic when exposed directly to the human body. Another advantage is the use of an ultraviolet lamp that emits ultraviolet light with a special function to increase the immunity.¹⁷ This sterilization booth has the concept “Health Gate Sterilizer made from Herbal Disinfectant with Ultraviolet Lamp”.

This study shows that work motivation can be significantly influenced by health gate sterilizers, especially during the current post-COVID-19 pandemic for educational staff in educational institutions. This is a useful thing, because in the current transition period, which incidentally is still being felt the horror of the impact of the COVID- 19 virus changes habits in one’s life to be very less social. This results in various psychological disorders, including not having a sense of motivation in doing their respective jobs because they are still haunted by the fear of being exposed to the deadly COVID-19 virus. This is because various activities that are usually carried out outside the home are now carried out indoors, especially in daily work.^18,19 Therefore, many people who are now starting to live their lives as before the COVID-19 pandemic feel less motivated.

Besides that, sometimes everyone is different not everyone can take care of themselves in public facilities to always maintain health protocols. For example, in public sports facilities such as gyms, it was found that fitness participants never used sterile wipes or products before or after using gym equipment (61.6%), and 35.4% of gym staff did not use sterilizing materials distributed through the fitness center. As well as most of the fitness center participants had experienced an episode of skin infection or respiratory infection in the fitness center during the last 12 months (22.2%), while 80.²⁰ This is indeed a strong possibility when people are not motivated to carry out activities as usual in public places.

Work motivation is one of the important aspects of achieving an employee’s performance from a psychological aspect.²¹ However, it turns out that the current postpandemic COVID-19 condition will also depend on the employee’s sense of security and comfort. So that when someone does not feel safe and comfortable at work because it is haunted by the COVID-19 virus, the employee’s psychology will be disturbed. Psychological disorders in employees, especially those who are married, occur due to pressure or problems that occur at work or at their respective home.²² This has had an impact on employees feeling anxious because they are not safe and comfortable, not focused, stressed and various other psychological disorders, resulting in employees being unmotivated at work.^23,24 In the end, it has an impact on reducing the effectiveness of individual performance in the work.²⁵

The problem in work motivation is closely related to the feelings or conditions felt by everyone who has diverse characteristics, such as feeling safe and comfortable when doing activities in public facilities.²⁶ With a variety of individual characteristics, of course, there are individuals who can maintain each other’s health protocols, but there are also individuals who have low awareness of maintaining health protocols. So that this results in feelings of insecurity and discomfort, and indirectly also has an impact on decreasing work motivation when in an office environment. This is very worrying for all parties and must immediately move concretely oriented toward optimal results.²⁷ Therefore, the most appropriate solution is to condition everyone in a preventive process that requires each individual to carry out these preventive activities, such as using a health gate sterilizer before entering an office building.

With the use of this health gate sterilizer, all employees without exception will be more sterile from various viruses, especially the COVID-19 virus. This will certainly feel safer and more comfortable for every employee, especially those who have a high awareness of maintaining the Health protocol. So that employees can return to normal work as usual while remaining in a healthy, enthusiastic, motivated condition and other conditions that are indeed supportive in carrying out daily activities.²⁸ But of course, with a note, always maintain the Health protocol. ²⁹

Based on this, more effective and efficient technology-based innovations are needed to be able to give more passion and motivation to work. With the presence of the health gate sterilizer innovation that has been developed, later in this study also proves that continuing to use the health gate sterilizer, can motivate more education staff to complete their work as a form of responsibility for their work in rebuilding the dynamics of a complete education, especially in the post-pandemic period.

Conclusions

This study concludes that the use of a health gate sterilizer has a positive effect on work motivation for educational staff in educational institutions. Therefore, it can be a solution in dealing with the current post-COVID-19 pandemic conditions because they do not feel safe and comfortable when doing activities as usual. The author suggests that the use of a health gate sterilizer continues to be used as a solution to prevent the transmission of the COVID- 19 virus or other viruses, especially it will also have an impact on someone’s work motivation when they want to work.