The responsibilities of CHROs have multiplied by manifolds in the prevailing situations being led by the corona pandemic. Professionals are working from home across the industries barring a few, such as manufacturing, where it’s simply not possible to extract productivity while keeping workers’ safe at their respective homes.
Almost every business process has gone virtual. And hence, a plethora of new challenges for hr leaders to combat with, such as building effective and practical remote-work structures, virtual onboarding, and keeping an eye on the personnel, as well as the organizational productivity.
What Do the Employees Expect of their Employers Amid the Pandemic
As per a Statista survey conducted in March 2020, 53% of employees expected from their respective firms to introduce an hr policy dedicated to those reflecting symptoms of corona, wherein they will be allowed to stay home. While 45% of those surveyed, expected from their employer to prevent individuals from coming to work who are at risk of catching the virus.
Share of professionals globally who believe their employer will make changes to hr policies in the wake of the COVID Pandemic
Source: Statista
How Human Resource Leaders Can Leverage the Opportunity Produced by COVID
Utilizing Data to Maximum Benefit is the Need of the Hour: Data is the fuel we burn in the current times to extract value. Especially, in the hr domain, it has never been utilized to its full potential till date. The irregularities in the delivery of work been brought in the form of the repercussions of the ongoing pandemic, has provided a great opportunity for chiefs of human resource departments at varied organizations to take charge of the situation by leveraging digital data.
To be specific, the optimal use of data can prove to be highly beneficial for uplifting the employee morale and working experience. Those CHROs who will be able to leverage data to its full potential will come out of the pandemic situation as ‘winners’ in terms of their individual performance, and contribution towards the upkeep of the business amid difficult times.
Changes in the Hiring Strategy: In the crisis situation like this, the mindset shift in terms of hiring is needed more than ever. HR professionals need to focus more on the skill aspect while hiring individuals in a specific role, rather than filling in vacancies for conventional roles that are finite in nature.
Digital Productivity & Presence is Paramount: Work is being delivered digitally to clients, and hence, a growing need to build digital infrastructure. Optimal use of hr tech is a must to achieve digital excellence for any HR leader in the C-suite. And that is why, HR executives need to be familiar with the execution of HR technology to bring in results.
Employee Experience Matters: Keeping employees motivated and cheerful in such times of crisis, plays a big part in maintaining their work productivity. As per a live poll conducted recently, it was found that 75% of the organizations do not cater to this important aspect of work.
When it comes to remote working culture, which is in force at the moment across industries in the world, upkeep of employee experience becomes even more critical.
Keeping in Constant Touch of the Employee Feedback, A Must: This is the first time for a majority of the workforce to be following a ‘work from home’ culture in their professional lives. And hence, a lot of anxiety and reservations on working, communicating, and maintaining productivity, while working from a far-away place from the office premises.
Need not to mention the web connectivity issues, and the technicalities related to setting up devices to communicate seamlessly with the team members.
Revision of Business Roadmaps, a Dire Necessity: Any kind of strategic blueprint, or a business roadmap ever created by any organization for the year 2020 needs to be revisited, and should be revised. As the business priorities have shifted, and so are the employee needs, strategy-building for short terms must be realized, rather than developing long-term success plans.
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