The Impact of Covid 19 On Human Resource Management Avoiding Generalisations

Eileen Jane Kantha Scott Chahat Steve Amy Wei May 22nd,
Aitken-Fox Coffey Dayaram Fitzgerald Gupta McKenna Tian 2020
The impact of Covid-19 on human resource

management: avoiding generalisations
10 comments
| 231 shares
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
While there is now a great deal of discussion concerning the impact of

Covid-19 on and implications for working practices and human resource
management (HRM), much of the content and comment on these
topics tends to be of a general nature, offering observations and/or
guidance that seek to define what a ‘new normal’ might be. For
example, that remote working will become the norm, or that working
practices will become more flexible. While this may be indeed what
happens, because Covid-19 is a global pandemic, we need to
understand its impact on working practices, well-being and HRM in
specific contexts. It is likely many changes will be common across
country contexts, but we should also expect, given institutional
differences, that there will be localised nuances. In Australia, through a
survey of and interviews with managers and others with people
management responsibility, our ongoing research has highlighted some
important outcomes.
First, while the majority of industries have been negatively affected by

Covid-19, particular industries and sectors have been affected
positively. For example, in Australia, amidst some reports of negative
impact, many respondents from healthcare and social assistance,
public administration, finance and insurance and mining have reported a
positive impact. As would be expected, the majority of our respondents
so far have moved to remote working, but most have not made
positions redundant and have worked to retain staff without using
government subsidies. In some sectors, some additional hiring has
been undertaken while in most, hiring freezes have been put in place.
Second, while many commentators are predicting an increase in remote

working in the future, this is not at all clear from our responses up to
now. As we would expect, organisations are reviewing the effectiveness
of remote working almost on a daily basis, but many are yet to make
any commitment to long-term remote working. It appears that
organisations do not yet know how remote working is affecting
performance and productivity, which is hardly surprising given that most
are using it for the first time. There is also the requirement of putting in
place new systems, policies and procedures for remote working which
in the Australian context is not something that can be introduced
without due diligence. Organisations are certainly debating the issue
with as yet no clear-cut decisions as to whether remote working will
continue beyond the pandemic.
Third, respondents are highlighting some key issues across a range of
people management topics as they work to deal with changing working
practices. Overall, the general sense is that people management is
having to become more agile and more responsive as a consequence of
the changed situation. In particular, respondents have mentioned the
need to differentiate between compliance that is required in the
Australian context (for example, the importance of compliance to
changing legal circumstances) and compliance with internal policies
and procedures that can be side-stepped to provide greater agility and
flexibility. This balancing act will not be relevant to all national contexts
where the law relating to employment matters can be ignored or side-
stepped.
More specifically, respondents have indicated that because many of the

central issues involved in business continuity are around working
practices and people management, they themselves are feeling much
more valued. Issues being highlighted by our respondents include the
more prosaic issues of ensuring that staff have functioning technology
at home as well as ensuring effective communication, supervision,
productivity and performance management, employee engagement and
support, re-aligning employee benefits and re-designing policies in
relation to remote working. The role of HR professionals and their
expertise has increased in significance in many organisations as they
seek to make agile and effective adaptations in the Australian context.
Fourth, it is also apparent from our study that employee well-being and
safety is of crucial importance. The move to remote working does not
suit everyone and even in Australia, where a full lockdown has never
been implemented, psychological well-being and safety is an issue. The
elements involved in this are obviously many. Not only will individuals
respond to the demands of remote working differently, but the home
context will also be specifically important in influencing well-being and
safety, for example, in relation to spatial arrangements and family
demands. These aspects of employee welfare create the need for
different and new areas of HR expertise to be applied in organisations.
Fifth, respondents have highlighted some employee behaviours and

actions that they recognise as having been helpful in business
continuity. For example, employee willingness to collaborate with each
other and with human resource professionals and departments in
making changes, and employee willingness to be flexible and adaptable;
complying with necessary changes to safety measures and; a
willingness to learn and upskill quickly. Such positive behaviours have
enabled some organisations to manage rapid change effectively. In
terms of unhelpful behaviours, respondents have highlighted that
managers have had problems with accepting remote working because
of their perception that it negatively affects performance, which leads to
micro-management. HR professionals need to be expert at advising
managers how to effectively manage performance of a remote
workforce, while the issue of micro-management is often a cover for the
lack of trust managers have towards their staff once they are ‘invisible’.
The issue of trust is clearly important, in that managers who lack trust
in their staff in the office will not suddenly develop it when their staff are
working remotely. Given that trust (and fairness) are central tenets of
effective management and employee performance, it is unsurprising
that managers who micro-manage will see a fall in productivity. In the
longer term these are issues that need to be addressed by
organisations in a broader context.
From the responses to our study so far, and we continue to gather data,
HR professionals and others with people management responsibilities
in Australia are having to bob and weave almost on a daily basis. As
part of the requirement for them to be more agile, they are having to
learn new skills, develop new expertise and disrupt some old practices.
They are having to learn very quickly how to support remote working. In
particular, this is with respect to issues of performance, changing
benefit scenarios and psychological well-being. In addition, they are
dealing with managerial trust issues concerning remote staff and
micro-management.
Our respondents are indicating that they have to be much more ‘tech
savvy’ in offering support and in other aspects of their support role as
HR professionals. They have also to develop new policies, but more
importantly, practices, with respect to performance management.
Respondents also highlighted that to have business and people
management continuity plans in place has now taken on much greater
urgency for the future.
As our international study develops and we gather data from seven

countries, as well as continuing to gather data from Australia, we will
begin to get an increasingly detailed and inevitably complex picture of
the impact of and implications for working practices and HRM systems
of the Covid-19 pandemic. We might assume that some of these issues
will be common in many countries.
♣♣♣
Notes:
• This blog post expresses the views of its author(s), not the position
of LSE Business Review or the London School of Economics.
• Featured image by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
• When you leave a comment, you’re agreeing to our Comment Policy
About the author

Eileen Aitken-Fox is an experienced industrial relations, people and
Eileen Aitken-Fox
culture, and organisational development professional and
academic. She has worked in leadership roles in listed companies,
higher education, and the not-for-profit sector. She has worked
extensively in the Asia Pacific region, holding managing director
accountability for an ASX-listed organisation working across
multiple countries and locations. She has extensive experience
leading diverse and virtual teams as a business professional, and
this experience underpins her theoretical skills and knowledge as a
teaching academic.
Jane Coffey
Jane Coffey is an academic with the faculty of business and law at
Curtin University. She teaches and researches in career
sustainability, graduate employability, talent retention and the
future of work. She is also an author of a best-selling university
text on strategic human resources. Dr Coffey has spent many
years as a deputy head of school, discipline lead and faculty
representative on a number of university committees. She is a
member of the Australian Human Research Institute State Council.
Kantha Dayaram
Kantha Dayaram is an associate professor of human resource
management and industrial relations at Curtin University. Her
research interests include transitional labour markets and labour

development; working time and well-being.
Scott Fitzgerald
Scott Fitzgerald is a senior lecturer and discipline lead (people,

culture and organisations) in the School of Management at Curtin
University. His research interests are located in the areas of
industrial/employment relations, sociology and political economy
and focus primarily on organisations, professionalism and work in
the public sector and in the communications and cultural sectors.
Chahat Gupta
Chahat Gupta is a postgraduate student at Curtin Business School,
Perth, Australia. Her interests include the nature of human
resource work and the contributions HR can make to
organisational development as well as the evolving role of HR
leaders and changing practices in talent management in a global
context.
Steve McKenna is an associate professor of human resource
Steve McKenna
management at Curtin Business School (Perth, Western Australia).
His research interests include global mobility and networks;
human resource management and ethics; and postcolonial
approaches to management and organisation studies. He has
published on these topics in leading academic journals.
Amy Wei Tian

Amy Wei Tian is an associate professor in human resource
management at Curtin Business School. Her research focuses on
how strategic human resource management and leadership affect
people’s attitudinal and behavioural outcomes such as creativity
and innovation. She also examines how multicultural employees,
leaders and teams can contribute to team and organisational
success.
Posted In: Management
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Eileen Jane Kantha Scott Chahat Steve Amy Wei May 22nd,

Aitken-Fox Coffey Dayaram Fitzgerald Gupta McKenna Tian 2020

The impact of Covid-19 on human resource

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

While there is now a great deal of discussion concerning the impact of

First, while the majority of industries have been negatively affected by

Second, while many commentators are predicting an increase in remote

More specifically, respondents have indicated that because many of the

Fifth, respondents have highlighted some employee behaviours and

As our international study develops and we gather data from seven

• Featured image by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

• When you leave a comment, you’re agreeing to our Comment Policy

About the author

research interests include transitional labour markets and labour

Scott Fitzgerald is a senior lecturer and discipline lead (people,

Amy Wei Tian

Posted In: Management

Is religious diversity good for team performance?

FEBRUARY 9TH, 2017 1

Covid-19 and the legitimacy of drastic action: lessons from

APRIL 23RD, 2020 1

Leaders are more likely to empower employees with a

AUGUST 27TH, 2019

Toxic organisations and the unenviable choices available to

AUGUST 31ST, 2020

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