By Prof. Arosha S. Adikaram, Dr. N.P.G.S.I. Naotunna,& Dr. H.P.R Priyankara

Contrary to many other crises organizations have witnessed thus far, Covid-19 has brought about an array of challenges and dilemmas. On the one hand, organisations are grappling financially due to a massive decrease in product demand, firm performance and sharp declines in investments. On the other hand, companies are fraught with ensuring their employees’ health and safety and curtailing the spreading of the virus, leading to drastic changes in the work settings and work arrangements.

Simultaneously, organisations are also faced with persistent disruptions to operations due to lockdown, supply chain issues, and various other restrictions imposed by governments. These crises in turn have brought about psychological health issues among employees due to social isolation, uncertainty about their physical health, job and future. Indisputably, these crises pose many Human Resource Management (HRM) challenges, placing Human Resource Professionals (HRPs) at the core of managing these catastrophes.

Even though there are research on managing recessions or financial crises, little is known about how human resource (HR) is managed in a pandemic such as Covid-19. Moreover, crisis management literature has largely focused on managing a single crisis and has not explored how multiple crises - as with Covid-19 - are simultaneously managed.

Hence, with the unique and catastrophic nature of Covid-19 and the distinctive and multiple impacts and the changes it had brought about, the need to understand how HR is managed to simultaneously overcome the multitude of crises is imperative.

Within this backdrop, we explored the HRM practices adopted by HRPs in managing the many crises created by Covid-19 by applying qualitative research methodology. We conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 26 HRPs of 26 Sri Lankan Companies in diverse industries during May and June 2020. Based on the empirical evidences that we collected and analysed, we arrived at Covid-19 Crises management framework of HRM bundles which is shown in Figure 1.

As can be seen in the Figure 1, the framework depicts how complementary HRM bundles (health and safety bundle, cost-saving bundle and employee engagement bundle) can be utilised in simultaneously managing multiple crises of Covid-19; the health crisis, disruptions to business operations through a lockdown and other government restrictions, financial crisis due to impact on sales and production and the resultant feelings of doubt and anxiety among employees.

These three HRM bundles will assist the HRPs quest for health and safety of employees, continuity of the business operations amidst lockdowns and other restrictions, engaging and motivating employees, and business survival and success.

Our findings show how, in actually managing the crises, a more humanistic approach to HRM can be adopted by treating employees as one of the Company’s most important assets. Many of the attempts of the HRPs interviewed have been to avoid the more negative HRM practices that are common during crises, such as cut down on benefits/welfare, retrenchments and layoffs.

In many instances, the HRPs have opted for other soft HRM practices and activities such as overhead cost saving by closing down office premises (without retrenchments of staff) or shifting to work from home (WFH). The soft approach to HRM was particularly evident through the practices of some Companies, such as continuing to pay employees even when the employees have not reported to work and amid financial difficulties the Companies were facing.

When the HRPs have had to resort to hard HRM practices and activities to survive, they have tried to reduce its impact on employees as much as possible through employee engagement bundle. Hence, our framework highlights how the hard and soft HRM approaches can be successfully integrated to overcome crises. All in all, the concern for the human aspect, even amid hard approaches, through incessant communication, collaboration, motivation and engagement specifically highlight the softer side of the HRM that should be brought into HRM during crises.

Unequivocally, whether the Companies adopted all three HRM bundles depended on the impact of Covid-19 on the companies and the crises they had to overcome.

While all the Companies had to face the health crisis, disruptions to business operations and anxiety and fear of employees, not all Companies were financially affected.

For example, telecommunication, pharmaceutical and retail companies were not financially affected as they had sufficient demand and even an increase in demand due to Covid-19.

Hence, these companies have mildly engaged in the cost-saving bundle (where needed) but have mainly utilized health and safety and engagement bundles to the fullest.

Unlike many prior studies suggesting frameworks or strategies to overcome crises, our framework is based on empirical evidences, increasing its practical value.

Moreover, contrary to the ever-existing debate and widespread doubts about HRM’s contribution to organisational performance, our study showcases the critical role of HRM in managing crises. While our framework will not be able to resolve all organisational issues related to crises, Companies can select from our framework of successful HRM bundles and the HRM practises thereof, to manage Covid-19 crises depending on the pandemic’s impact on the businesses.

Further, given the many HRM practises within each bundle and the HRM activities within each HRM practise, Companies can select the most effective combinations within the HRM bundle and between HRM bundles that would lead to the best synergetic effect and organisational effectiveness, based on factors such as the impact of crises to the organisations and the capabilities of the organisations.

Even though our framework provides a practical HRM guide to address the multiple crises of Covid-19, the importance of agility, flexibility and leadership in this process should not be overlooked since these factors would allow HRPs to utilise the framework in managing the crises successfully.

In addition, in using this framework, the need for internal fit; the fit between HRM practises, external fit; the fit between HRM systems or bundles and the other systems within the organisation and the fit between HRM systems and external environment need to be considered.

(This article is an extract of the research paper - Adikaram, A.S., Naotunna, N.P.G.S.I. and Priyankara, H.P.R. (2021), “Battling Covid-19 with human resource management bundling”, Employee Relations, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-08-2020-0390- Please refer to the original research paper for the detailed version)