Human resources consulting during the Covid-19 pandemic from the employer’s perspective.

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly changed the way most people live and has made countries, societies, companies and individuals rethink the way they live and work. Today, crisis is not a new situation for any organization, but the Covid-19 pandemic has created unexpected challenges of unparalleled magnitude even for adaptive and crisis-prepared organizations. Across the globe, organizations that are particularly vulnerable to pandemics are finding their survival and vibrancy threatened.

Human resource management (HRM) is usually at the center of this chaos as COVID-19 impacts employees and the organization must prioritize employee health and safety and adapt employees to a new environment. Employee health and safety contributes to better productivity, higher quality of work, better morale, and lower turnover rates, leading to an overall better quality of life (Ahmad, Saltar, and Nawaz, 2016).

As HR departments face the dilemma of how to keep their employees safe and informed, here are some tips that can help employers navigate this pandemic situation;

Keep up to date with accurate information

It is difficult for an employer to make correct decisions because a lot of inaccurate information is based on fake news, rumors, individual assumptions and perceptions. Therefore, it is important for an employer to keep up to date with current news and facts in order to make a better decision. Employers should therefore follow official information platforms such as government notices and the World Health Organization (“WHO”) website and ensure that the information accessed is accurate and consistent with the facts. Employers also need to provide their employees with accurate information about benefits, pay, incentive types, work situation, etc.

Talk to your employees

Employers should speak openly and frequently with their employees to provide them with the information they need to help keep themselves informed and aware of Covid-19 issues. It should not be assumed that all employees are on the right channel with reliable information. Keeping everyone on the same page will reduce uncertainty messages or information from reliable sources. In addition, employees need to be informed about their working conditions, wages, benefits, and how the company protects and promotes their well-being. Open and timely information helps build trust and reduce the spread of misinformation that can lead to workplace anxiety.

Offer employees flexibility

Employers should be aware that this pandemic will create additional stressful situations for everyone involved, including employees. Therefore, an essential task for HR is to identify those employees who have different needs due to their circumstances, such as working parents with school-age children who may need more time off as classes shift to online platforms. This period of ambiguous circumstances will pass, but employees will remember how they were treated by their employers after the threat of the virus is gone. A disgruntled employee may try to tell the world how badly their employer treated them. This can tarnish the company’s image and reduce the chances of attracting and retaining talent.

Emotional support for employees who work remotely and raise concerns.

Employers should provide a secure platform to support employees with their concerns about work – from emotional distress to mental health to the risk of contracting Covid-19. This not only serves to develop a good relationship with employees, but also helps with early detection and finding ways to contain the spread of the virus and also overcome mental health issues due to emotional distress. In addition, employees struggle to cope with the stress that comes from the confluence of remote work and family life. Cecilia Tse, Wellbeing Strategy Leader at PwC, said, “We are committed to promoting the wellbeing of our employees, and we define this to include their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing. This statement demonstrates the importance of employee well-being as employees struggle with anxiety due to work-life balance pressures and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Successful employees enjoy the trust of their employers

For decades, employees were successful in a situation where they were supported by their employers by being empowered to get their work done and receiving regular constructive feedback. The transition from traditional office work to work from home puts a lot of pressure on workers, leading to unsafe conditions due to trust issues. It is important that employers instill confidence in their employees, care about their work, and understand that they will do their best even if no one is looking over their shoulder. So employers should avoid micromanaging their employees and start trusting and supporting them through effective collaboration.

The bottom line is that the Covid-19 pandemic is changing the nature of work as we know it, and that change is likely to continue even after the virus is gone from this world. As a result, HR managers and employers need to prepare their employees to take advantage of the work-related opportunities provided by the organization to address the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this Covid-19 pandemic use icehrm.com, digital HR platform to manage the work of employees, get their work done and get the regular reporting through online.