The impact of COVID-19 on human resource management and the way forward

 

Operating the businesses today while facing the global pandemic of COVID-19 is quite challenging. COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented health crisis that has strongly shaken the whole world have experienced a major impact on their economies and societies due to the pandemic. 

The pandemic has also affected the day-to-day lives of the general public. Thus, people’s income level is going down, inflation is going up and loosing job ratio is also going up. Meantime, a number of discussions are taking place, concerning the impact of COVID-19 and implications for workplaces, working practices and Human Resource Management (HRM).

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Due to the cash flows issues and without having sufficient demand and profit in the business, it is difficult to look after a company’s staff. It has been identified that some companies have even closed down and some have reduced operations. Some have also been compelled to reduce staff members. Hence, many of the trainees and fixed term contract employees lost their jobs. Most of the outsourced labourers have been sent out. However, it is necessary for them to look after their permanent employees as terminating permanent employees is a long process of a company. Some of the companies cut their salaries as a mechanism to reduce staff cost. 

The HRM department has to perform a dual role, balancing the business and the staff. Without making profits, the company cannot take care of their staff members, and without healthy and potential staff, the company cannot perform. At present, uplifting the business is a struggle for many organisations. They need to survive the businesses while managing their expenses, and keeping a nominal profit margin.  

Responsibility

Who is responsible to take care of the staff during the pandemic? Is it the HR division? No, it is the responsibility of the entire management team of a company. Each manager has to play a HR role within the company. The HR division can help the managers and staff while consulting and driving people through implementing policies and procedures. 

Challenges and How to mitigate

Present, the challenge is how HR can look after the business and the staff. If the business is not going up, there are a few things for concern: increase productivity and reduce cost. Cost can be reduced to a certain extent. It is necessary to look at each type of expense carefully, and pay attention to cutting down expenses as much as possible. 

In origination, every employee has a responsibility to provide the maximum support to a company to get maximum output during the tight schedule. Getting rid of unproductive staff (bad apples) is necessary after carefully measuring employee performance during this crucial situation, if it is not possible to get them into the correct track. 

Now, there is a situation where curfew is imposed in certain areas in the country. Since the pandemic is spreading around the country, some employees are not in a position to travel to office, and visit clients for business purposes. It has created many issues for businesses and affected income generation of some companies. 

This global pandemic educates the society and the business world on how the VUCA concept (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) is applicable here. The VUCA helps business leaders to make decisions and problem solving considering the future. If a leader knows there is an uncertainty in the market, they can navigate their decision making and risk avoidance to protect the organisation. Now it is high time to think about this concept and make necessary strategies.

 

Working from home or remote

Now working from home or remote working is more popular now and it has become the new normal practice in the world , because given the risk in society, this is the best way instead of travelling and working with other staff members. However, this method is not effective in every case. It is especially not possible for manufacturing firms’ operational staff and some other fields. 

Therefore, the world is moving towards digitalization. Some of the HR functions can be digitalized, adding value to the organization. Further, it is possible to outsource some of the HR functions as well. However, the companies have to identify value-added HR services when taking such decisions.  There are some HR functions which have to function smoothly but those don’t add much value to the organizations, such as payroll and handling statutory payments. Digitalising possible HR functions would add more value to the company. The digitalised HR functions can be operated from anywhere in the world. HR should set an example to others, showing other managers that it is possible. For the current context, digitalisation would be a better solution. 

Learning and development

Learning and development is one of the greatest HR functions today, and it adds more value and colour to organisations. During the pandemic, it is necessary to educate staff members on how to work from home/remotely in a productive way. Some of the managers may have a doubt on how can they measure and ensure the results of working from home. It is necessary to make some criteria to measure the performance of working from home concept, even though there are some staff members who are not in a position to work from home as their duties are more operational.

Performance management vs pay management

Performance management and pay management are other most important HR services for any organisation, which add more value to organisations. In order to reduce the COVID-19 impact for business organisations, streamlining the performance management and link it to pay management system to correct performance is absolutely necessary.

 Most of the companies are struggling with its cash flow due to this crisis. Hence, getting maximum output from each and every staff member as much as possible is very important. Identifying poor performing employees and get rid of them is also required. Employees who are highly committed and showing excellent performance should be rewarded during this difficult situation.

Talent management and leadership development

Identifying potential employees through an effective performance management system is needed for the success of the business. Professor Dave Ulrich said: “HR professionals play a strategic partner role when they have the ability to translate business strategy into action.

Company leaders have to think strategically and in visionary ways. HR has to support to realise this strategic goals in companies. If the company doesn’t have the strategic vision, it is stuck in the survival path. HR professionals would have some resilient skills to modify and introduce new policies and procedures to retain the best talent within the organisations, ensuring staff’s physical and mental well-being. During this crisis, discovering and identifying more opportunities and new business ventures is essential for every organisation. Every manager should encourage their subordinates to think out of the box. 

 Culture modification in origination 

Nobody predict when a vaccine or a suitable medicine will come into play to eradicate COVID-19. It may take many months or a couple of years. However, the business has to run bearing all the difficulties. We are unable to predict the future. 

Why is important is that the companies have to make plans and get ready for the uncertainty while looking after their staff and the business. Hence, modifying the workplace culture is compulsory. Not only that, as a responsibility the organisations have to think about their customers, suppliers and the community as well. Employees can’t perform and behave as previously. HR together with the management team has to make an enough effort to adjust the culture to run the business while ensuring the business goals. 

The overall purpose of human resources (HR) is to ensure that the organization is able to achieve success through people.^[5] HR professionals manage the human capital of an organization and focus on implementing policies and processes. 

Therefore the HR division of any organisation has to play a vital role as now the most difficult thing is looking after the staff and helping the company to ensure business results. The efforts would be appreciated as HR is the heart of the organisation.

 

References

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-management-and-organization/article/human-resource-management

site:researchgate.net

https:www.ilo.org/global/lang- -en/index.htm

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_resource_managemen