HRM7505 Human Resource Development
1.0 Introduction
The function of Human resource development is a vital part of any organisation. It deals with the performance, work, people and information of an organisation. It is responsible for creating an ambience and infrastructure which affects every part of an organisation like stakeholders, clients and employees. The overall performance of the organisation also depends on the development of human resources. Over the past decades, human resource development has established beyond the conventional way of managing workers to a more planned role to consider employees, clients and stakeholders as assets of the organisation which are making contributions to the sustainability of the business and strengthening the organisation. The impact of the pandemic is immense on the critical sectors of the society. Overall, the sudden shift in the working condition of each individual in their life created stress and behavioural changes among themselves.
2.0 Background
The organisation and globe leaders are playing an important role based on the consequence of the pandemic in particular. The role of human resource development has emphasised the importance of the human capital play during the crisis. The role of the human resource is to build links between the leaders and the employees of the organisation. The recent pandemic made every organisation of the world aware of the challenges and the loopholes present in the organisational structure, as the pandemic rages on for years most organisations are facing uncertainty about the control on human resource and maintenance of the customer base through marketing. The organisation should consider meeting to stand up to make reports summarised as per the meeting needs. The department of the human resource should develop practice of doing prosocial work which will help to encourage the spiritual and physical well beings to minimise the overburden and stress due to work. Human resource development plays an important role in retaining and motivating each employee of the organisation as it is the employees of the company which act as the driving force to bring success to the company. The companies and governments around the world, when facing several challenges and setting new priorities to stay afloat in the current pandemic-induced economic downturn, human resource development plays a critical role to keep the society and employees intact.
3.0 Critical Analysis
3.1 Implication of the pandemic
The role of human resource is about managing the employees and the working condition of the organisation. The pandemic impacted the practitioner and the managers of every organisation. In order to achieve the goals of the organisation during a time of emergency, ability to make
Figure 1: Implication of the crisis
(Source: https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/education-and-covid-19-focusing-on-the-long-term-impact-of-school-closures-2cea926e/)
Strategy regarding the management of the resources and making coordination is important to properly utilise the knowledge and resources of the organisation (Bohemia et al. 2020). The pandemic brought many challenges to the human resource about the difficulty in adjusting to the current and new employees of the organisation as the condition of the work has drastically modified. The issues highlighted by the organisation are duller in ensuring the employee’s health condition and redesigning policies to remote working. The aspects of the welfare created for the employee need to be new and different in the areas of human resource expertise in the organisation to be applied (Al-Enzi & Diab-Bahman. 2020). The condition also indicates that when the values are supported and workplace conditions altered the benefits of different kinds are derived from such a working environment. The remote working facility caused major challenges to the elder manager and practitioners. Many individuals are not familiar with the tools required for remote working. The virtual methods used to assess an employee are not perfect as it makes it difficult to judge the person whether fit for the job as it can have bad impact both in productivity and retention. Employee wellbeing between the performance and working conditions is important as the wellbeing of the employee is the reason for the creation of demands for better resources to reduce the stress of the work (Dirani et al. 2020). Retaining employees represent challenges to human resources in the context of the current pandemic. The importance of the engagement and to increase the sense of employees about belonging is important to prevent the cost of recruitment to ensure the success of the organisation. Due diligence is needed before placing new policies and procedures of working remotely. As organisations around the world are debating about the impact on employees’ work life balance on adopting remote working even beyond the pandemic.
3.2 Implication on Education
Education is a “fundamental right to each human” to bring progress to the society. The outbreak of the pandemic has shown the grey areas of the access to the education faced by the society. The teachers also lack the necessary skills required to switch to this remote access way of teaching. The shift to the alternate learning methods does not equate the well planned and the online design of the education process (Alhagar & Gamil. 2020), these issues have impacted the social wellbeing and psychological behaviour of both students and teachers globally. The stress and worries about the contamination highlighted the quantitative need required for the students and the universities of the country. These require leaders to supervise the frequency the employees and students need engagement to boost motivation. Worldwide over a billion students are affected from the pandemic and the fatal state of the education system already in the developing countries are further affected from it (Dana & Salamzadeh. 2021). According to the United Nation Educational Science and Cultural organisation the learners from the developing countries are more affected from the pandemic than developed nations.
Figure 2: Pandemic impact on education
(Source:https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/infographic-covid19-coronavirus-impact-global-education-health-schools/)
It is essential for the supervisors to be more flexible with the students and employees about their adaptiveness to the new working environment. Frequent and candid communication with the employees about the new state of condition to work helps to morally boost the employee’s performance (Gigauri. 2020). To remain versatile is important for every organisation and individuals to reinvent the way of learning and teacher and student relationship and complements. The challenges though not ended with the current crisis. The funds required to modernise the infrastructure should be made the top priority in the coming years. The lockdown has accelerated the diverse need of every country’s requirement to modernise and scale up the education system. Throughout the crisis the global education system is looking broadly at international policy and responses (Mendoza et al. 2020). Many E-learning tools played a crucial role during the pandemic but the adaptation required to the new changes made many unable to cope with the methodology that caused many challenges to both students and teachers to adapt to the remote work condition.
3.3 Implication on training
The sudden halt to the training in-person has impacted the hiring process of the employees by the organisation. These push companies around the world to find ways to implement models to compensate for the lockdown restriction on doing business (Clark et al. 2021). The pandemic has forced the market for training to use intensive video formats as the best alternative to the face to face meeting. The situation in large parts of the business has forced the need to adapt to the new reality as the communication from remote locations will continue for a longer time (Harris. 2020). The virtual methods used to assess an employee are not perfect as it makes it difficult to judge the person whether fit for the job as it can have bad impact both in productivity and retention. The new challenges and the nature of the working condition has highlighted the urgent need to adapt to the new condition as depending on the traditional way has hampered the business of the company to retain the talent and take care of the company’s employees. The companies which switched to the new model of interaction with the employees have made the employees feel more overburdened with the work and lack of cooperation from the human resource of the companies. The pandemic had severely impacted the apprentices and interns of the enterprise (Jena. 2020). The employees of micro small medium enterprises suffered the most due to lack of access to the digital tools and the reluctance of the small enterprise to adapt to the new normal. The common challenges faced by the companies to reskill the current employees and give training to the new employees is difficulty in delivering training hands on and lack of adoption of training programmes and resources (Cunningham et al. 2020). The biggest brunt is taken from this pandemic is the person with little access to formal education as the company begins to take measures of cost cutting the new hiring program and attrition of low skilled workers are the first to face the action of it. To meet the challenges, it is important that the company should pursue a strategy of harnessing the talent that will help its employees and interns to develop capabilities of critical digital and their resilience to the adaptability (Karabag. 2020). The blended learning methodology will keep the employees, students and intern to stay put with the new way of working and learning even after the pandemic over so it can switch when the requirement arises in future.
Figure 3: Employee Training and Development
(Source:https://www.simplilearn.com/how-covid-19-has-affected-employee-skills-training-article)
Due to the different crisis each employee of the organisation is facing, many are reskilling themselves as the pandemic showed the importance of digital skills and the benefits it brings along with it.
3.4 Implication on Performance
The pandemic has brought daily changes to the routine and more challenges to the areas of activities. The uncertainty and low predictability of the pandemic not only affected the emotion and the mental health of the employees and people across the world but also physically. Home isolation and social distance has caused negative effects on the employee’s wellbeing. The engagement in remote work practice changed the demand of the job and the aspects of the relation with the work (Kaushik & Guleria. 2020). Outcomes which are unintended can also arise when the characteristics of the virtual work fail to meet the requirement of task for each individual. Addition to the social support and control over the process of the work can help to pacify the employee and enjoy the work life balance. As the people and employees felt the effect of the pandemic due to the multiple changes in the working conditions it became more evident about the hardship the employees, students, interns and normal public were facing during the crisis(Koonin. 2020). Many studies were undertaken and found the significant negative impact it has on the public. In general the effect of the pandemic on the employees of the health sector are broadly affected and many casualties in the sector have occurred. Moreover, the condition of losing one’s job and income also causes major stress related to work (Yawson. 2020). Doing work in a place which is inefficient can cause an effect which is detrimental to the mental and physical welfare of an employee. The importance of looking after the wellbeing of the employees is critical as their performance on which the enterprise success depends upon.
Figure 4: Impact of Pandemic on Performance
(Source: https://www.hcamag.com/asia/news/general/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-performance-management/228574)
Recommendation
The pandemic has forwarded the need to discuss the condition of better access to education system and digital infrastructure needed for micro small medium enterprises to gain the digital skills needed during the extraordinary times. The implication of the employee and the employer due to the pandemic has necessitated the need to modify the policies related to working and the training of new individuals to the company. The pandemic showed that if appropriate strategies are implemented to handle the situation then the employees’ performance and the students’ access to the education system will minimise the severity of the impact of the crisis. The staff which are less digital savvy should be trained to increase the usage of platforms. The units for safety would help to ensure the employees are working in a safe environment and units for welfare should give employees response as per their needs on the variety of the issues in the workplace and outside. The organisation should consider meeting to stand up to make reports summarised as per the meeting needs. The department of the human resource should develop practice of doing prosocial work which will help to encourage the spiritual and physical well beings to minimise the overburden and stress due to work. Regularly hearing from the leader of the team, ensuring the wellbeing of the employees impacted by the crisis is one of the important responsibilities that the leader should take at the time of managing the health and mental health of each member. The students lacking access to digital infrastructure should be given access to programs such as learning recovery programs. Many countries and governments around the world have accepted such programs to minimise the disruption to the education system. Allocating more budget to the education is also adopted to improvise the ways to bring resilient recovery to bring help to the most vulnerable students to modernise and support the education infrastructure of the institutions. Building back better from future crises is vital as it is important to better prepare for the future crisis. Equipping students, teachers and employees of institutions and organisations with equipment and digital devices is important to create a blended working and learning approach to better face the future crisis. These recommended efforts will help organisations and institutions to recover faster and adapt to digital in the future crisis in a more adaptive and resilient way.
Conclusion
The pandemic has opened the eye of the disaster it can bring onto the world. The importance of increasing the budget to minimise the disruption to the education and training is vital to keep the social structure intact. The issues highlighted by the organisation are duller in ensuring the employee’s health condition and redesigning policies to remote working. The organisation should consider meeting to stand up to make reports summarised as per the meeting needs. The most notable impacts of the pandemic is on the wellbeing of the traditional workplace and the general nature of the working environment of the organisation. Many studies were undertaken and found the significant negative impact the crisis has on the public. This shows the larger impact of the crisis varies from person to person and institutions. The depth of the implication of the pandemic is not understandable till yet on a broad base it can be said that the pandemic has impacted the wellbeing of each individual and enterprises mostly in the case of small and medium enterprise. More government response to stabilise and strengthen the social fabric to better handle the future pandemic induced crisis is vital from every point this crisis can bring has shown to the world.
Reference List
Journals
Buheji, M., da Costa Cunha, K., Beka, G., Mavric, B., De Souza, Y.L., da Costa Silva, S.S., Hanafi, M. and Yein, T.C., 2020. The extent of covid-19 pandemic socio-economic impact on global poverty. a global integrative multidisciplinary review. American Journal of Economics, 10(4), pp.213-224.
Diab-Bahman, R. and Al-Enzi, A., 2020. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on conventional work settings. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy.
Dirani, K.M., Abadi, M., Alizadeh, A., Barhate, B., Garza, R.C., Gunasekara, N., Ibrahim, G. and Majzun, Z., 2020. Leadership competencies and the essential role of human resource development in times of crisis: a response to Covid-19 pandemic. Human Resource Development International, 23(4), pp.380-394.
Gamil, Y. and Alhagar, A., 2020. The impact of pandemic crisis on the survival of construction industry: a case of COVID-19. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 11(4), pp.122-122.
Gigauri, I., 2020. Effects of Covid-19 on Human Resource Management from the Perspective of Digitalization and Work-life-balance. International Journal of Innovative Technologies in Economy, (4 (31)).
Gómez, S.M., Mendoza, O.E.O., Ramírez, J. and Olivas-Luján, M.R., 2020. Stress and myths related to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on remote work. Management Research: Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management.
He, H. and Harris, L., 2020. The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on corporate social responsibility and marketing philosophy. Journal of business research, 116, pp.176-182.
Jena, P.K., 2020. Impact of pandemic COVID-19 on education in India. International journal of current research (IJCR), 12.
Karabag, S.F., 2020. An unprecedented global crisis! The global, regional, national, political, economic and commercial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Journal of Applied Economics and Business Research, 10(1), pp.1-6.
Kaushik, M. and Guleria, N., 2020. The impact of pandemic COVID-19 in workplace. European Journal of Business and Management, 12(15), pp.1-10.
Koonin, L.M., 2020. Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak: Now is the time to refresh pandemic plans. Journal of business continuity & emergency planning, 13(4), pp.298-312.
McGuire, D., Cunningham, J.E., Reynolds, K. and Matthews-Smith, G., 2020. Beating the virus: an examination of the crisis communication approach taken by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during the Covid-19 pandemic. Human Resource Development International, 23(4), pp.361-379.
Rudolph, C.W., Allan, B., Clark, M., Hertel, G., Hirschi, A., Kunze, F., Shockley, K., Shoss, M., Sonnentag, S. and Zacher, H., 2021. Pandemics: Implications for research and practice in industrial and organizational psychology. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 14(1-2), pp.1-35.
Salamzadeh, A. and Dana, L.P., 2021. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic: challenges among Iranian startups. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 33(5), pp.489-512.
Yawson, R., 2020. Strategic flexibility analysis of HRD research and practice post COVID-19 pandemic. Human Resource Development International, 23(4), pp.406-417.
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