Dealing with impact of Covid-19 pandemic lockdown as an HR Professional

Due to Covid-19 pandemic, it has affected all our personal as well profession life. The way we used to operate has changed to meet the new normal situation. As a HR professional we have to adapt the changes and find new ways to implement HR practices. Every change comes with its pros and cons. This change taught an organization also to put more trust and confidence in its employees and also effective ways of communication so that we can work remotely in an effective manner. We also learnt that there is no impossible as right now if I remind myself how we used to work in offices at that time we never thought that the whole organization can work remotely. A big thanks to technology without which it was impossible to manage in such severe situation.

One more thing that comes to my notice is the productivity of the employees drastically improved. Recently, I was having discussion with few team members to check the mental health and their opinions were like they are really enjoying the work from home, less stress out and more effective. There can be many reason for the same but common was time saved in travelling. It saves their time and energy and they can put that in work now.

Though there is a long way to go yet and many problems to overcome but slowly and gradually we are going in the direction of recovery. We are seeing lay-offs, salary cuts, no appraisal, employees on bench but soon this is going to be normal and the business will resume at double pace than ever. The efforts of HR professionals are invincible in terms of supporting the business, leadership team, employee matters, policies, documentation, continuous communication, transparency, health checks of the employees. To resume back the services, hr needs to work more effectively so that business can resume commercially. It will be very crucial part.

Responsibilities of HR:

Work from Home policy:
Designing and implementing work from policy where in business gets equivalent productivity from resources and organization goals are met. The policy should comprise points in regards to employees need to follow the decided working hours, tasks priority to be discussed with manager and proper reporting practice should be followed.

Don't stop communicating:

Every manager has found that keeping their team engaged requires lots of effort to communicate with employees stuck at home during lockdown, and the same rule will apply to staff returning to work. Smoothing between those who are remote and those who are in the office is traditionally seen as a challenge for businesses experimenting with telecommuting; but with the majority of employees now working from home, communication and relationship building is a key to show empathy.

After lockdown, classifying number of employees to resume office:
As we hear that work from home is going to be new normal but however there are certain job profile which is difficult remotely. Subsequently certain policies to be redefined, identifying number of employees working from office on the alternate days or week basis as per government guidelines. It is equally important to understand the business needs and priorities of the organization goal to classify the employees.

Ensuring Facilities at office Space is proper:
Along with maintaining social distancing at work place and cafeteria, HR will need to work closely with administration teams to ensure facilities of deep sanitization, providing masks at entry, installation of air purifiers and making office clean in terms of pantry etc. Proper hygiene should be maintained and hand sanitizer to be available at different spots.

Development plans for employees:
For successful comeback of the organization, employees to put more efforts than before. It will be a competitive situation for all the businesses. In order to be successful, employees need to develop their required skill sets, can arrange of cross functional training, motivational program to be in place where HR can play a vital role.

Talent Acquisition:
Large number of candidates would be looking for job due to vast lay-offs and simultaneously lot of companies would be focusing on their talent needs. It is significant to fill the vacancies but also to ensure that employers or organization do not take advantage of the situation and ask the candidates to join at a very lower salary rate.

Managing of costs:
Can re-look on the cost of huge infrastructure and how can we jointly minimize on overhead costs.

Building people and organization capabilities:
Not just physical well- being but after this situation, certain skills like handling crisis, disaster management, uncertainty management will be of necessity. HR has to play a role to develop skills via coaching, on the job training, mentoring, aligning with objectives, maintaining transparency to move forward.

Overall, according to my point of view HR role is going to be more critical and important to support the business needs. In areas of talent acquisition, onboarding, building capabilities, development and encouragement of employee’s additional efforts will be essential.