❑HR’s job is to:

❑ Help build and reinforce the company’s values and culture. Employers have a vital role in
perpetuating a strong culture, starting with recruiting and selecting applicants who will share the
organization's beliefs and thrive in that culture, developing orientation, training and performance
management programs that outline and reinforce the organization's core values and ensuring
that appropriate rewards and recognition go to employees who truly embody the values.
Organizational culture can manifest itself in a variety of ways, including leadership behaviors,
communication styles, internally distributed messages and corporate celebrations. Given that culture
comprises so many elements, it is not surprising that terms for describing specific cultures vary widely.
Some commonly used terms for describing cultures include aggressive, customer-focused, innovative,
fun, ethical, research-driven, technology-driven, process-oriented, hierarchical, family-friendly and risk-
taking.

Company values represent a key part of company culture, and it’s one of the easiest elements to define.
However, defining values and instilling them in your workforce are very different activities. It takes a
quick brainstorming session to come up with a list of company values, but it takes constant and
consistent effort over weeks, months, and years to instill them.

❑Play a leadership role in building capabilities that ensure the successful execution of business strategy.

The leadership role in an organization is assumed when an individual or group of individuals has a clear
vision of what needs to be accomplished and is able to get the members of the organization to strive
willingly for common goals.

The most effective means of influencing people is through communication. A leader communicates to
his or her followers a direction that they should move toward and tries to influence their attitude so that
they will be ready to move in that direction. This requires vision on the part of a leader and the ability to
guide people toward a common goal. Clearly, the capability of the organization’s leadership to channel
the energy of the members of the organization to act on what needs to be done determines the
effectiveness of those leaders and the potential impact of the organization.

1. Mental Health and Wellbeing

The sudden change in work culture has resulted in overall employee health and well-being. Stress,
anxiety and other mental health problems are always present and this is not a new story. The sudden
shift in work culture took a toll on overall employee health and wellbeing. Stress, anxiety, and other
mental health issues have always been there, and it is no new story.

Organizations have always been initiating wellness programs and providing employees with security,
health benefits, and flexibility to help them overcome their health issues. But the sudden COVID-19
outbreak has brought the employees’ mental problems to the front seat.
When you have your workers working in an office work environment, you understand their pulse and
sensitivity, which helps you immensely tackle the issues. But employees going remote, communication
routes have been significantly compromised, leaving the managers clueless or less conscious. In a
recent COVID-19 pulse survey, HR professionals across the globe responded health and wellbeing of the
workers be a major concern.

2. Managing Remote Work

The transition to remote work culture is not as seamless as it seems. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, less
than 50% of companies had a remote work program. In addition, banks, regulated industries, and many
financial services companies did not encourage remote working. Now almost all of them are rushing to
build remote work strategies.

This has led to many undiscovered problems. HR managers are trying to build seamless routes and
strategies to overcome the challenges that it brings. Strategies are no more designed periodically or in
advance but in real-time. The focus on employee productivity and engagement has shifted to
immediate responses and diagnosis. To provide employees with the right tools and gather real-time
updates from them from time to time to untangle the intricacies and offer support.

3. Lack of Agility

One of the major reasons why HR teams are struggling is due to the lack of agility.

Many HR teams are not designed for agility. And this affecting the HR professional big time. In this crisis,
it is critical to respond fast and move quickly. But there are many approvals to take before taking action.
This slows down the process of collecting data and take immediate measures that a crisis demands.

So to become more agile in their approach and re-prioritize company goals, and have the right
communication and alignment among middle management and executives is the need of the hour now.

4. Employee Communication

Communication is another major challenge that is on the priority list. Communication, in itself, is a
critical aspect that needs to be taken into account whether or not the workforce is working remotely.
Without the proper communication channels, it becomes difficult to manage a workforce.

For example, the COVID-19 crisis had the HR professionals on their toes. It kept them looking for the
right remote working tools that suit their culture. Though tools like Zoom or Slack are commonly used
to meet the workforce’s
needs, it certainly is not enough to get everyone on the same page.

More or less the HR teams are doing their best by sharing-

 Updates regarding measures adopted by the organization,

 Updates from business leaders via email or video,

 Links to valuable external information sources,

  Ongoing communication on HR policies related to the crisis,

 And through health talks and training sessions.

5. Uncertainty

Uncertainty can paralyze anyone. The daunting feeling of not knowing what the future holds or what
measures to take to sustain organizational operations is a huge challenge. Unfortunately, we all are
more or less affected by uncertainty.

Employees are affected mentally, not knowing what the future holds for them. The HR teams are
struggling to put everything in alignment. To respond to the crisis and develop effective measures and
strategies for all.

6. Employee Engagement

The ultimate company goal is the productivity of its employees. However, it becomes challenging to
keep the employees engaged when they are working remotely and that too, in a crisis. Internal
communication is compromised, and keeping everyone on the same page becomes tough.

With remote working, it is difficult to follow a routine and even accept a systematic workflow. When
the teams are cross-functional, you have little power to manage them. Not updating them regularly or
not arranging meetings/ sessions can impact their morale to a great extent.

Rapid policy change

As these are extraordinary times nearly every company policy has been affected and needs to be
updated for Covid-19 clauses. As HR departments are accountable for the lion’s share of company
policies, they have a lot of work on their plate with very little time.

There are some elements that HR departments should consider. Fast communication is key at this time
and they should ensure that the business has the ability to communicate to all staff (even out of hours)
when an important immediate policy change is needed due to new government guidelines. They should
take advantage of the numerous webinars that companies are providing in order to arm people with
advice and the tools necessary to get through the business disruption that has been experienced. They
should try to be flexible and empower managers to make decisions in relation to their teams as it is too
difficult to have a policy for absolutely everything that has changed over the past few weeks.

Trust

Where possible, many companies have now moved to remote working and unfortunately this was not
by choice. This is a major culture change to a lot of businesses that has just happened overnight. Trust is
an essential element of working from home.

Some techniques can increase trust across departments. Daily stand ups can be scheduled where
managers discuss work priorities per day for the team and themselves and enquire from employees if
there are any blockers preventing the execution of their work. Team and employee performance should
be measured by KPI metrics which should be reported weekly by each team to the CEO. Managers and
the CEO should facilitate and enable frequent and honest communication from and to employees.

❑HRP is the process of including forecasting, developing and controlling by which a firm ensures that it
has the right number of people & the right kind of people at the right place at the right time doing work
for which they are economically most useful.

Why HRP?

❑Replacement of persons;

❑Employee turnover;

❑Explanation plan;

❑Technological changes;

❑Assessing needs: the ‘demographic imperative’ demands more such planning;

❑Training becomes effective;

❑Increase service quality, reduce operating cost & increase return on assets;

HRP...limitations & problems

❑Limitations of forecasting;

❑Employers’ & employees’ traditional bias & apathy (indifference/lethargy);

❑Resistance from employees;

❑Incidence of absenteeism-A stumbling block in HR planning;

❑Illiteracy & paucity (scarcity/lack) of skilled labour- A serious problem for HR planning;

❑Expensive & time consuming;