Emerging Practices at Workplace Post COVID 19 (5 mins Read)
COVID-19 has impacted the world in a big way, disrupting all walks of life. For the organizations, the HR teams have been at the front, quickly providing the employees the organization’s response positively to the pandemic. New guidelines were rolled out for working, providing infrastructural and social support to the employees. Now the companies have gone a long way ahead and have made several changes to the policies, structures and the practices to align with the new style of working. The new developments and the implementation of the changes call for a lot of collaboration and working closely with all the stakeholders in the company. However, the challenges are not over yet, as the ‘new’ normal way of working throws up many questions which need the answers.
The HR teams had a lot of challenges to tackle, with most of the staff working from home. They have set new guidelines and changed the policies. Revised the job descriptions in order to accommodate full-time, part-time and the remote working definitions.The new methods monitor the productivity of the employees very closely for those who are working remotely. The performance management system has undergone a complete overhaul with new targets, new expectations and a number of rewards added. The revised policies incorporate the process of resource availability and optimum utilization for their employees to work remotely and provide higher output.
As the HR teams look to the future, they realize that many practices would change as listed below and would redefine their roles.
- Highly increased remote working
It has been more than one and half years since the outbreak of the pandemic. A growing number of business leaders think that the remote working is here to stay and this can be higher for the companies which are looking for reducing the investments in the real estate to compensate the losses incurred during the lockdown period. This has necessitated digitalization and higher adoption of technology and transforming the brick and mortar workplaces into technology-enabled virtual ones.
The most significant benefit from this model is that managers are now able to find the most suitable candidate from all over the country – since recruitment has now become independent of the location where the candidate stay. As more organizations are shifting to remote work operations and exploring the critical competencies, employees now have to collaborate digitally and are prepared to adjust to the new strategies.
- Increased data collection and monitoring
Even before COVID 19, many companies were using various non traditional employee monitoring tools, but that HR trend has been accelerated by new monitoring tools for the remote workers and the collection of employee health and safety data.
Technologies are now more frequently used to monitor the employees through methods such as virtual clocking in and out and monitoring employee emails or internal communications/chat and tracking the work computer usage. While many companies track the productivity, others monitor the employee engagement and well-being to better understand the employee experience. One needs to make sure to follow the best practices to responsibly use of employee information and analytics.
- Return of the gig economy
Due to the economic uncertainty of the pandemic many workers lost their jobs and there were others who were exposed for the first time to nonstandard work models. Many companies responded to this pandemic’s economic impact by reducing their contractor budgets, but since then there has been a shift. Utilizing the contingent workers provided employers with greater flexibility concerning workforce management. A survey has revealed that more than 30% of the organizations have replaced their full-time employees with contract workers in order to save costs. But, the HR managers who filled the vacant positions with contractual staff had to deal with few challenges concerning the applicability of workplace laws upon the temporary staff.
- Shifting the focus from efficiency to resilience
Earlier, the organizations used to focus more on the employee efficiency, but in the post-COVID-19 world, it’s resilience which has taken precedence. In order to build a more responsive organization, companies had to design roles and structures around the outcomes to increase agility and flexibility.Further, provided the employees with varied, flexible and adaptive roles so that they acquire cross functional knowledge and training.
Keeping in mind the growing remote working culture and the possibility of more outbreaks of infections in future, recruiters now look at the job applicant’s digital dexterity and digital collaboration skills while hiring.
- More emphasis on the employee’s social safety
Post COVID-19, organizations increased their focus on the employee safety and their emotional well being. The HR teams expanded their involvement in the lives of employees and ensured enhanced people connect. Personal factors rather than the external factors has taken precedence over what matters for the organizations and the employees alike.Taking such measures have been an effective way to promote physical health as well as improve the emotional well-being of employees.
- Training the employees on how to work remotely
Identifying the digital tools to impart training to the employees – trainers, mentors and managers. Primarily, revolving around the concepts of how to work remotely and perform well. These programs helped the employees to manage the stress, build a positive outlook and always stay productive under the new remote working model.
- Increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The post pandemic world has seen an increased application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the HR function. AI helped recruiters immensely to find the most promising candidates from megabytes of job applications and helped the organizations not only to reach the diversity goals in the process, but also in retaining the top talent and engage with the employees through smart applications.
Conclusion
For the HR managers, this is a crucial time for them to play a significant role in shaping the future of organizations. To sum up, People, Policies and Procedures will be the three strong pillars on which they can build a new foundation for HR excellence.
Initially, there were many companies that thought of the post pandemic return as an event and that they would go back to work just as they have done before. However, it is now becoming increasingly clear that for many, returning to work will be a process which would take more and more time considering that one and half years have already passed and only a handful of companies are asking people to work from office. Instead of calling all the employees back to office, companies now want to seize this moment to reimagine and reinvent the future. Looks like exciting times are ahead, although there might be a few challenges.