COVID-19 is an extraordinary health catastrophe that has shook the entire globe, causing immense dread and uncertainty. It has had a significant influence on economies, society, workers, and organizations. This crisis began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which experienced an epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in December 2019, which has since expanded rapidly, prompting the World Health Organization to declare it a worldwide pandemic on March 11, 2020.
In addition to these measures, the COVID-19 epidemic caused a major slowdown in global economic activity (Brodeur et al., 2020; Gourinchas, 2020), resulting in furloughs and layoffs (World Economic Forum, 2020), which contributed to a rise in the unemployment rate in several nations. The ‘current G7 unemployment totals range significantly, from 30 million in the US to 1.76 million in Japan' (Kretchmer, 2020). According to Gourinchas (2020), COVID-19 has created a situation in which 50 percent or more of the workforce may be unable to work in a short period of time.
Human resource management facing COVID-19: implications and challenges
Human resource management (HRM) is concerned with "how people are employed, managed, and developed in businesses." Armstrong and Taylor (2020: 3) COVID-19 has had a considerable influence on it, posing substantial problems for managers and HRM practitioners. This section examines the effect and difficulties of strategic HRM and working conditions, as well as HRM activities like as staffing, performance management, training and development, pay management, safety and health management, and employee relations. Each HRM function is described separately, although they are all interconnected. This implies that any modification in one HRM function will have an impact on the other.
Opportunities, future organizational directions, and insights into HRM interventions
COVID-19 has presented significant problems to managers and HRM practitioners, but it has also opened the door to prospects worth learning about and comprehending, which may help businesses plan their future activities. Indeed, according to Demirkaya and Aydn (2006), a crisis can provide companies with unanticipated possibilities. In this part, we will explore these prospects in relation to potential future HRM directions.
COVID-19 has pushed for debates about the future of work and challenged organizations' creativity and innovation (Hite & McDonald, 2020). It has expedited the disruption of HRM as well as the deployment of future scenarios (Hite & McDonald, 2020). Furthermore, it has compelled companies to reconsider their HRM strategies and to move beyond traditional models of human resource management, by presenting modern information technology as a critical partner in ensuring the survival and longevity of their firm. In this environment, new law has been enacted in many nations to assist companies in navigating this abrupt and unanticipated shift.
As a result, the adoption of remote working appears to be the new normal in businesses at the present. However, other writers believe that it is too soon to affirm that all organizations who have implemented remote working will continue to do so in the future, beyond COVID-19 (Aitken-Fox et al., 2020b). Given that they are implementing this work structure for the first time, they are most likely assessing its efficacy before making a choice. As a result, they are unsure how it will effect staff performance and productivity (Aitken-Fox et al., 2020b).
However, according to a recent McKinsey Global Institute report that assessed the long-term impact of COVID-19 on labor demands, occupations, and workforce skills in eight countries (China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States), remote work and virtual meetings will continue, albeit less intensely than at the peak of COVID-19 (Lund et al., 2021).
Despite its drawbacks, remote working allows people to enjoy flexible working hours, save time travelling, develop job control, and get expertise with new ICT (Prasad & Vaidya, 2020). Furthermore, it allows businesses to maximize the use of their resources, such as office space, and save money. In fact, some nations' economic sectors, such as Korea's, perceive development prospects in non-contact industries such as telecommunication, remote assistance solutions, and online education (Liu, Lee, & Lee, 2020).
Furthermore, COVID-19 provides possibilities for companies to increase employee autonomy, improve digital capabilities, and extend the scope of their competency development. Furthermore, the pandemic has positioned new technology as a key partner for businesses. It has aided in the survival of enterprises and the reduction of the gap between employees and their employers while assuring their safety. It has encouraged managers' and HRM practitioners' innovation, as well as aided the shift from traditional face-to-face socializing techniques to virtual ones, such as virtual meetings, lunches, and coffee breaks (Carnevale & Hatak, 2020).It has also aided in the retention of workers in companies while adhering to physical separation requirements.
New technology has also aided in the management of workplace safety and health. It has aided in the implementation of the choice to keep staff at home and shield them from the danger of infection while they continue to work for the business. It has also aided healthcare practitioners, such as psychologists, who have continued to assist the public via telehealth networks while adhering to physical distance restrictions. During the epidemic in China, for example, mental health treatments were delivered through a variety of channels, including hotlines, online consultations, online courses, and telemental health services (Gao et al., 2020). (Zhou et al., 2020).
COVID-19, according to Lund et al. (2021), may hasten the adoption of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) in industries requiring a high degree of human contact, such as medical care and personal care (e.g., gyms and hair salons). As a result, it is critical for organizations to understand ICT and make it available to all of their members in order to continue their operations amid extreme situations. Some writers emphasized the significance of utilizing AI for HRM during a health crisis, recommending it as a useful tool to minimize interruptions in operations and management processes while guaranteeing physical separation and employee protection.
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