The Role of Human Resource Management during Covid – 19 period.

 

What is Covid-19 crisis?

COVID-19 is an unparalleled fitness disaster that has strongly shaken the complete world, plunging it into super worry and uncertainty. It has closely impacted economies, societies, employees, and groups. This disaster has commenced first withinside the city of Wuhan (China), which has witnessed in December 2019 the outbreak of extreme acute respiration syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that has regarded a quick unfold propelling its reputation to an international pandemic on March 11, 2020, through the World Health Organization.

Given the speedy unfold of the COVID-19 virus, the international locations have applied several non-pharmaceutical measures supposed to lessen its unfold, consisting of social distancing. Lockdown measures were imposed; human beings have been quarantined; schools, universities, nonessential businesses, and non-governmental groups were briefly closed; travels have been restricted; flights have been canceled; and mass public amassing in addition to social occasions were prohibited.

The impact of Covid-19 pandemic:

Trying to recover from this economic shock, companies have started reopening (Major & Machin, 2020), in the mid of this ongoing pandemic, under extraordinary rules and a new functioning (e.g., physical distancing in the workplace) that no one can predict when it will end. Therefore, this pandemic has obviously led to the emergence of a complex and challenging environment for managers and human resource management practitioners who needed to find ingenious solutions to sustain their company's business and to help their employees to cope with the challenges of this unprecedented situation.

In this blog, there are very few studies on the impact of COVID-19 on HRM, its challenges, and its potential opportunities for HRM in organizations, whereas managers and HRM practitioners need relevant information that will help them to go through this crisis effectively and efficiently, to be able to support their employees and to sustain their company's business.

Human Resource Management Challenges & Implications:

HRM is about how people are employed, managed and developed in organizations’ (Armstrong & Taylor, 2020). It has been grandly impacted by COVID-19, generating significant challenges for managers and HRM practitioners.

·       Staffing:

Staffing refers to the process of attracting, selecting, and retaining competent individuals to achieve organizational goals. It had been greatly impacted by COVID-19, which has reshaped its dynamic in organizations.

Organizations that were facing financial difficulties due to this pandemic have adopted down-skilling by cutting back on recruitment of high-skill jobs more than low-skill jobs to reduce their costs and try to sustain their business (Campello, Kankanhalli, & Muthukrishnan, 2020). They have frozen or cut back all their recruitment or they have laid off their employees.

Also, employee retention might represent another major challenge for organizations in the current context of this pandemic (Elsafty & Ragheb, 2020). According to Elsafty and Ragheb 2020, pointed out that during these hard times characterized by drastic and sudden changes, employment relationships might be damaged, leading to the possible dramatic decrease of employees' morale and an increase in turnover.

·       Working conditions:

The COVID-19 crisis has drastically altered working conditions in organizations. Indeed, to ensure their business continuity, most organizations have moved to remote working, requiring their employees to work from home. remote working is not suitable for manufacturing industries (Koirala & Acharya, 2020) and it cannot be applied to all job positions (Bartik et al., 2020).

In this context, there were two possible scenarios for companies whose nature of their business does not allow them to adhere to these types of working conditions. Either to require their employees to be physically present while respecting the measures of physical distancing and wearing personal protective equipment or to lay them off.

·       Performance Management:

Performance management is a continuous process of identifying, measuring and developing the performance of individuals and work groups and aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization (Aguinis, 2019). It is crucial to ensure that employees' performance is aligned with the company's strategic goals (Ismail & Gali, 2017).

To sustain the company amid a crisis like COVID-19, employees are still required to maintain their good performance (Sembiring, Fatihudin, Mochklas, & Holisin, 2020). However, it seems that the COVID-19 outbreak has also altered performance management in organizations. According to some authors, most organizations were overwhelmed by the challenges resulting from COVID-19, such as measuring employees' performance and the disruption in performance-based pay, that they have reduced or even abandoned performance management due to the complexity and the novelty of this pandemic. In fact, measuring employees' performance during this crisis can be challenging, considering the modification of the working conditions.

·       Change Agent:

Due to COVID-19 many adjustments are taking vicinity with inside the businesses and paintings places. Some are associated with work redesign, including new obligations and obligation with present jobs, new fitness and protection measures to be implemented, teaching employees, doing away with fears and pressure a few of the employees, downsizing, enforcing new guidelines and guidelines, pandemic making plans to paintings with employees, customers, worldwide and authorities corporations and different applicable stakeholders. In these kind of sports and events, HRM must make contributions to the organization. Especially at some stage in the COVID-19 period, HR managers and specialists must function enablers of change of their businesses. According to Hodgson and Briand (2013), change agent function of HR managers/specialists (contributors of HR Department) are to look them as “police-like enforcers” of the brand new regulations, policies and procedures. A disaster situation needs many adjustments withinside the businesses in addition to paintings places. It calls for change control in addition to disaster control. Crisis control is a system which ends up in fast and bendy organizational model to the quick converting situations of an emergency period (Vardarlier, 2016). The businesses can address any disaster greater effortlessly with the assist of HRM. HRM turns into important in phrases of change control system and practices. HRP has ability and capability to function a ‘change agent’ withinside the businesses now no longer simplest to take the organization’s hobbies into attention however additionally its employees’ interests.

Due to COVID-19 many changes are taking place in the organizations and work places. Some are related to work redesign, adding new duties and responsibility with existing jobs, new health and safety measures to be implemented, educating employees, removing fears and stress among the employees, downsizing, imposing new rules and regulations, pandemic planning to work with employees, customers, global and government agencies and other relevant stakeholders. In all these activities and events, HRM should contribute to the organization.

Especially during the COVID-19 period, HR managers and professionals should serve as enablers of change in their organizations. According to Hodgson and Briand (2013), change agent role of HR managers/professionals (members of HR Department) are to see them as “police-like enforcers” of the new rules, regulations and procedures.

A crisis situation demands many changes in the organizations as well as work places. It requires change management as well as crisis management. Crisis management is a process which leads to swift and flexible organizational adaptation to the fast changing conditions of an emergency period (Vardarlier, 2016). The organizations can deal with any crisis more easily with the support of HRM. HRM becomes essential in terms of change management process and practices. HRP has skill and capacity to serve as a ‘change agent’ in the organizations not only to take the organization’s interests into consideration but also its employees’ interests (Anton Arulrajah, 2020)

Conclusion:

The current situation is not good for any kind of business over the world as this pandemic situation. Thus, the companies or the business entities should align to protect the employees and improve their work engagement to fulfill the companies goals & objectives.

Bibliography:

Adams-Prassl, A., Boneva, T., Golin, M., & Rauh, C. (2020). Inequality in the impact of the coronavirus shock: Evidence from real time surveys. Journal of Public Economics, 189, 104245.

Anton Arulrajah, A. (2020). The Role of Human Resource Professional in Preventing and

Controlling of COVID-19. Sri Lankan Journal of Human Resource Management, 10(2), 1–9.