Role of HR in Covid-19

The current situation of coronavirus pandemic has brought upon many problems to the firms and
caused the human resources managers to think differently as now they have considered the social
distancing factor and health issues of their employees. Now they have to provide them a new
working environment that was never imagined before.

To prevent the spread of the virus, companies have switched to remote work model in a stage
they have never experienced before. As face to face communication is now replaced with e-mail
and videoconferencing. The HR managers have to deal with all the difficult work of handling
labor under difficult circumstances. They are concerned about the employee’s health and well-
being. Many of the important employers fell sick and could not work during the time of their
sickness, there work had to replace with others which is difficult as well.

The HR managers are not only concerned about the employees’ health and well-being during the
pandemic, but they are also under pressure of paperwork and decision making to the millions of
workers who have been laid off or fired. The reduced profit of different organizations across the
globe made it so much difficult for HR to decide whom to keep and who not. And for the
employees who are still on the job, the HR managers are trying their best to keep them
productive and motivated so that their quality of work may not fall and engage them properly to
reach the company’s goal.
Even though work from home is massively practiced after the lockdown declared by the
government, the concept is still very new to the people of Bangladesh. Therefore, it is not being
executed perfectly. Following the declaration all non-essential organizations, businesses, and
educational institutions are closed, except for pharmacies, groceries, and other unavoidable
necessities. The problem here is no set of rules were introduced to industries and establishments
for working from home. The government needs to modify the Bangladesh Labor Act Laws to
make working from home more adaptable for employees and employers.

With the note of making the situation more adaptable, new measures should be taken to make
work from home easier and more open by the use of technology. The law will need to make sure
these systems are available so people can have access to these technologies and the option to
work from home more broadly and flexibly.

In that way, industries and establishments can make sure that the potential employees are
working full time therefore they can get their average salaries. According to the provisions of
BLA 2006 in case of an epidemic, the stoppage of work is allowed up to 3 days maximum.
During the period of stoppage of work, if it lasts for more than a day, the workers will get
respective salaries. However, casual workers' will not get the same.

This provision of "stoppage of work" may not be applicable in this situation as the COVID-19
crisis is continuing and is expected to linger much longer. As such, the mechanism of "stoppage
of work" is not a suitable one for employers for this current crisis.
Instead of firing employees in these tough times they can take following initiatives:

 Ask their employees to go for unpaid leave or furlough employees.

 Decrease salary for a short period of time and then pay them in the previous rate when
things get better.
 Can apply the piece -rate system (payment which is proportionate to the work done) for
all employees as the employees do not need to work consistently for 8 hours per day from
home.
 Offer an hourly or daily basis salary.
 Offer only the basic salary and no extra benefits to cut down costs during this time.
Taking the devastating and uncontrolled situation of Covid-19, the only way we can work out of
this industrial turmoil and the uncertain industrial environment is by working with mutual
respect, empathy, and affection.

The government, industrialists, and workforce need to be more empathetic during the upcoming
recession, they need to be well prepared to secure salary, employment, improve productivity, and
ensure more safety measures and hygiene in operations. The use of a flexible and more
transparent HRM practice id needed to achieve employee performance development along with
organizational sustainability. There is no alternative to cooperation and wholehearted support in
these distressing times.

Activision Blizzard

Activision Blizzard, a video game company based in Santa Monica, Calif., has moved 99% of its
10,000 employees, security, and other essential staff except janitorial to remote work. They had a
remote-work policy, but, it was not designed to handle a situation where everybody would work
remotely while experiencing the crisis of Corona Virus. Their policy was not structured to
support working from home while employees would be dealing with health-related challenges or
caring for their kids or other dependents.
The company swiftly implemented updates to its remote-work policy to offer different work
hours and provide a kind of flexibility that the company had never proposed to its workers
before.

Their technology teams worked quickly to create solutions, buy equipment, and provide access
to our systems remotely. These arrangements provide temporary solutions for teams of
employees that normally need to work together in producing a game, such as animators,
developers, sound technicians. The company also empowered managers with the autonomy to
work with direct reports to create schedules that best accompanied their work-from-home lives.

The company is also considering the health and well-being of the employees and their families.
Therefore, they made sure all their employees and their families are getting a proper check-up
from the doctors and they took the responsibility of all the cost for medication or if any
employees become ill and need to visit a hospital. The company covers any testing and treatment
costs associated with COVID-19 for employees and their families. They also established online
resources and telehealth services.

Their internal team has begun a ‘white-glove’ service for their employees, which helps them to
connect their employees with any of their resources so they can get assistance quickly. They
provide necessary virtual coffee breaks to their employees and daily touchpoint meetings to
encourage the employee. However, the HR managers are facing difficulties when they are hiring
extra employees for specific capabilities in case of any major employee get infected.
https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/29/how-activision-blizzard-ceo-bobby-kotick-is-dealing-with-the-
pandemic-and-reopening/

https://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/op-ed/2020/06/04/human-resource-management-during-a-
pandemic