Covid-19 pandemic has come with a reminder –change is the only constant in life. As the changes brought on by the pandemic tested organizations and as they continue to undergo turmoil, at the heart of all of this has been the function, Human Resources (HR). Fast forward two years since the outbreak, today we are in the cusp of recovery. Organizations are gearing up to survive in the new normal era and HR has come to light again. The question now is, what is the role of HR in this pivotal moment? This is the time when HR has to bind to synergize between work, workforce and workplace. Deloitte, in their 2020 publication titled, ‘Workforce strategies for a post-COVID-19 recovery Workbook’ recommends that the recovery phase be composed through five critical actions - reflect, recommit, re-engage, rethink, and reboot, which lays the foundation of this article. Reflection centers around postmortem and learning. Delving into discussions surrounding the questions of what has worked versus what has not, what was missed versus what is next (Deloitte Development, 2020). For example, before the pandemic, there was dialogue on the implications of technology for the future of work (UN News - Global Perspective Human Stories, 2020). Conversely, that future arrived much sooner than anticipated, with a bang! Almost overnight, work changed, workplace changed, and most importantly, workers had to undergo these changes. Therefore, there is still must to decipher to learn and plan for the future. How have these changes impacted employees? Undoubtedly, this pandemic has placed employees under severe stress and anxiety; from staying safe to having to adapt and notably, ensuring adequate income protection to support themselves and their dependents (Barbier, 2020). As a result, as employees return to work, HR must reinforce their commitment to their wellbeing. This includes focusing not only on physical wellness, but also on emotional, mental wellbeing and financial concerns. HR has an ethical and moral obligation to all those employees that have been impacted by COVID-19 (PwC, 2020), arguably not only for those currently employed, but also towards those who have been let go as well.

We are also seeing that Learning and Development (L&D) is under the limelight. The emphasis is on how HR should gear up to upskill and reskill employees (Elfond, 2020). Yet, before the actual application of L&D interventions, the focus should be on in- depth and quick identification of skill gaps and on competency mapping. This is what must guide HR in investing in L&D for the growth of knowledge, skills and attributes portfolio of employees. Ultimately, the goal must be that employees become more resilient and provide a competitive edge for the organization. One central area of this investment should be in digital upskilling (Taylor, 2020; Deloitte, 2020) as COVID-19 has accelerated the digital transformation. HR must consider implementing effective programs to ensure employees are equipped with the necessary digital skills and tools needed to effectively perform their roles. Next action is rethinking. This involves utilizing new business priorities to rethink and reconfigure the work, workforce and workplace. As hybrid way of working (Ro, 2020) will be part of the new norm, HR’s role in creating an agile, nimble organizational structure will be crucial (Thornton, 2020). In fact, researchers Suri and Arora (2020), echoes the strategies recommended by Deloitte, where their paper discusses the 4-R Crisis-Normalcy Model of HRD - redefine, relook, redesign, and reincorporate in this reinvention process. The last action is rebooting. This involves realigning HR and people operations priorities with key business and workforce priorities. These priorities change with the volatility in the environment, creating it’s on opportunities and threats. Therefore, HR has to ensure the HRM and HRD plans have a good vertical fit with the overall organizational objectives, and thus rebooting when it necessitates. The notion that VUCA is an alien lingo in the business world is a thing of yesteryear. Today, the pandemic has taken volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity to a whole new level (Gifford & Green, 2020). In such a world, there is no denying the importance and power of HR in connecting and rebuilding work, workforce and workplace.

References

Arora, P. & Suri, D. 2020, "Redefining, relooking, redesigning, and reincorporating HRD in the post Covid 19 context and thereafter", Human resource development international, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 438-451

Barbier, E.B. 2020, "Greening the Post-Pandemic Recovery in the G20", Environmental & resource economics, vol. 76, no. 4, pp. 685-703

Deloitte Development, 2020. Workforce strategies for a post-COVID-19 recovery Workbook. [Online] Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/human-capital/deloitte-uk-workforce-strategies-for-post-covid-recovery-workbook.pdf

Deloitte, 2020. The upskilling imperative - Building a future-ready workforce for the AI age. [Online] Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ca/Documents/deloitte-analytics/ca-covid19-upskilling-EN-AODA.pdf

Elfond, G., 2020. Why Employee Upskilling and Reskilling Is So Important Right Now. [Online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/12/21/why-employee-upskilling-and-reskilling-is-so-important-right-now/?sh=3fdaae7c3302

Gifford, J. & Green, M., 2020. How could COVID-19 change the world of work?. [Online] Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/news-views/changing-work-views/future-work/thought-pieces/covid-19-change-work#gref

PwC, 2020. How the new normal is shaping the future of HR, s.l.: PwC Middle East.

Ro, C., 2020. Why the future of work might be ‘hybrid’. [Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200824-why-the-future-of-work-might-be-hybrid

Taylor, C., 2020. For workers, 'digital upskilling' puts tech trends on fast-forward. [Online] Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-world-work-digitalupskilling-idUSKBN2771C3

Thornton, J. 2020, "Covid-19: how coronavirus will change the face of general practice forever", BMJ, vol. 368, pp. m1279-m1279.

UN News - Global Perspective Human Stories, 2020. ‘Business as unusual’: How COVID-19 could change the future of work. [Online] Available at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1064802