Question

1. Globally, organisations all over are struggling to cope with the prospects and challenges of this ‘new normal’ (COVID - 19). Discuss how this ‘new normal’ has influenced these human resource practices either positively or negatively as well as the way forward: a) Recruitment or Decruitment b) Training and career development c) Human resource planning d) organizational policies .
   
2. In the wake of COVID – 19 with all the uncertainties and anxieties, examine three innovative ways of managing human resources humanely .
   

Flex-time and telework have become the new norm due to the global pandemic. The issue of ‘netiquette’ or behaving appropriately during online business meetings is increasingly becoming a concern for managers and organisations. Examine three of these inappropriate behaviours and make recommendations .

Answer 1

a) COVID impact on HR practices reveals that HR managers are now reviewing organizational structure, roles of employees, locations, conducting employees’ survey, etc

A. Recruitment or decruitment

Now HR managers do not consider face to face recruitment. Open positions are less due to lack of business. Recruitment process is done remotely and remote work is offered. Thus recruitment is going on but not frequently.

B. Training and career development programs are provided online. On the job training is provided by maintaining social distancing. Direct contact is minimized and virtual meetings for training purpose are organized. Thus, COVID pandemic negatively influences training and career development programs as direct contact may assist employees to learn well. Mentoring and coaching are also not provided due to safety reason.

C. Human resource planning is also negatively impacted by the COVID pandemic. Human resource planning if requires more workers cannot be obtained due to fear and social distancing norms. Particularly, if the organization is a distribution company or healthcare organization. Now companies are unable to avoid shortages of employees if they need them.

D. Organizational policies are now taking into account safety of employees thus; many new policies such as arranging seating plans and changing layouts, ensuring hygiene at workplace, and developing protocols for visitors and customers are introduced. They also provide health and safety training to the employees. Thus COVID negatively influence organizational policies as extra efforts are being taken by company to make organization safe from pandemic.

b) Three ways to manage employees during COVID are informing employees about COVID impact on business to mentally prepare themselves to face crisis, offering them opportunity to work from home to foster their health and wellbeing, and offering them payments even if they are laid off temporarily.

One bad netiquette practice is using capital letters while communicating that resembles as if the person is shouting. Therefore, it is suggested that capital letters should be used only when sender wants to point out certain sentences. The second poor practice is not paying respect to privacy of people. Sharing private information about a person is bad practice and therefore, suggestion is to avoid such practice during communication. Another bad practice is not responding to emails of people. Therefore, prompt reply to emails is must to practice good netiquettes.