Focus more on resilience or efficiency? HR roles post-pandemic

(The author is a Professor of Management and Economics, formerly at IIBM (RBI) Guwahati. He can be contacted at m.bibhas@gmail.com)

Dr. Boidurjo Rick Mukhopadhyay

(The author, international award-winning development and management economist, formerly a Gold Medalist in Economics at Gauhati University)

Chances are you know people who have considered switching careers during and after the pandemic. This could be simply because A) They lost their job during the pandemic, or B) Similar jobs don't exist anymore or hiring has been frozen in that industry, or C) the Future prospects are disappearing in their sector, as new demand and markets are created post-crisis.

Many industries are now resuming recruitment and some are creating new opportunities for employees displaced by the pandemic. At the same time, a big percentage of currently employed or unemployed are looking outside their specific field and eyeing new industries where they could potentially bring some value and some transferable learning from experiences.

So, what hard and soft skills do you need to get hired today?

A recent Michigan University study shows that companies are not looking for generalists instead of specialists. Particularly those with transferable skills can work across multiple job functions, and also industries. For example, someone working in the hospitality field will have demonstrated leadership, innovation and creativity, intellect abilities, grit, and effective time management skills – which are called 'human' skills (some list them as 'soft skills') – and these are essential in hiring, managing, retaining and engaging employees. Talent management and talent hiring have also changed in perspective of the changed timeline that we live in now. Specialists, however, would lack some of the broader skills that a generalist has, and could develop newer expertise through online courses, and more hands-on experiences in their targeted industry.

HR professionals also need to ensure to set up a culture of learning, development, and also appreciation. While data-driven human capital decisions are necessary, it is also important to identify where the skill gap is, recognise in-house talent and resources, and how provide targeted training. Various roles within the industry are becoming broad with time, requiring a range of skills and knowledge of new technology. For example, someone specializing in accounting or financial management would be required to have programming and storytelling abilities to better fit the expanded duties of their role.

Top 5 skills that are essential!

A study by KPMG that studied over 400 firms illustrates that the skill sets that employers want from new recruits are teamwork (55%), communication (55%), time management (46%), problem-solving (45%), and finally creativity (44%). In a recent study, IBM shared that 81% of their junior and middle management employees voted to continue working from home, at least until the end of 2022. PWC on the other hand is ensuring ways of hybrid working whereby a large number of office employees could rotate in and out of offices configured for shared space, as necessary. Whether to go live, online, or hybrid depends also on the industry, management and operational structure, and leadership. These are critical topics of the day since they would create and affect new workplace culture, employee engagement, and the future of work also. Flexibility is a must-have and so is ensuring human skills remain upgraded and that quality remains uncompromised.

The role of HR during and after a pandemic

HR has a colossal role to play during this period, A) providing options such as offering mental health days, B) enabling flexibility at work and reducing virtual micromanaging, C) providing better health insurance, D) wellness and meditation sessions, E) virtual workout classes, also F) targeted webinars (not too many and repeated ones!) about mental health topics. These will have deep consequences on the company's history and stories to tell to explain the company's culture in the future, and higher than the three choices that companies face at large today, I) dismissing employees because of closure during the crisis, II) retaining employees with unpaid leave, and III) retaining all or part of employees with salary package. These are real questions because even though 'work from home, and 'virtual workplace' – are deemed necessary and normal today, we have to understand that not all companies can be that flexible necessarily, a range of large companies find it difficult to move all processes online quickly and effectively. For example, hospitality (tourism being a big chunk of it) and the entertainment industry faced not the problem of falling profit but of survival in the market.

Most research findings reported above show that respondents are more concerned about business continuity as well as newer ways of working around new workplace practices, people management, and also exploring ways to feel valued. While staff needs to ensure having a functioning technology at home as well as maintain effective communication, supervision, productivity and performance management, employee engagement and support, re-aligning employee benefits and re-designing policies in relation to remote working are also critical components in this 'new normal' journey. The role of HR professionals and their expertise are manifold today – from managing panic, avoiding dismissals, remote work monitoring and management, to coping with lack of knowledge in technologies and crisis management skills, learning and implementing new safety regulations.

Workplace and role of HR after the Pandemic

A study conducted in the US and North America shows that 32% of organizations are replacing full-time employees with contingent workers (freelancers, gig workers) as a cost-saving measure along with a push for work-from-home as 'required' from full-time employees. A recent study by Gartner shows that 48% of employees will likely work remotely at least part of the time after COVID-19 versus 30% before the pandemic. For HR of such organisations, the work lies in identifying critical competencies that employees will need to collaborate digitally, and how to ensure employee satisfaction and work experience accordingly. At the same time, it is important and rather critical for organisations to expand their data collection mechanisms while also ensuring not to create a 1984 (Orwell reference) or micromanagement situation at any cost. This relates to the constant monitoring of employees through methods such as virtual clocking in and out, tracking work computer usage, and monitoring employee emails or internal communications/chat.

As mentioned above, the role of contractual and contingent workers is vital for sustaining the company's key and auxiliary operations. The role that HR will play here is to ensure that proper contractual arrangements are in place and that employee rights (even if the freelancers do not tend to be perceived and considered as 'employees') are provided and explained. Regardless of whether employees are full-time or hired as freelancers, employers and HR have a big role in their employees' financial, physical and mental well-being. Support includes enhanced sick leave, financial assistance, adjusted hours of operation, and child care provisions. It is essential these are communicated using proper channels and ensuring employees understand the availability and access of these in time. In order to sustain the competitive advantage of a firm, it is vital that the focus remains on skills rather than roles.

Ultimately, regardless of whether organisations look from a budget or strategy point of view – there has to be a choice made between resilience and efficiency. And it has to be done quickly and decisively weighing all possible variables depending on the scale and nature of the organisation. HR's role in this context would be to provide employees with varied, adaptive, and flexible roles so they acquire cross-functional knowledge and training. The idea is to build a more responsible organisation, designed around outcomes to improve agility, flexible processes and structures.

Cut to credits, the final and inevitable point to wrap this discussion is to acknowledge the increasingly unavoidable data-driven decision-making. Alike most industries, business sectors, and markets, HR also have to use workforce analytics to measure employee experience, engagement, productivity, and satisfaction based on industry standards as well as changing times. This information from leveraging the right set of analytics would be useful to forecast workforce requirements and also to optimise cost-revenue models as well devise strategies to reduce productivity gaps. This would then inform the organisational strategies for talent acquisition, and development management decisions to prepare a stable responsive system that will be able to nurture the post-pandemic future of work that still operates within the industry 4.0 era.