T environment was introduced by the United States Army to describe the unfavourable conditions that

resulted from the end of cold war (Bennis & Nanus, 1985). The VUCA model was subsequently adopted
by business leaders across the globe to approach different kinds of challenging situations posed by
various external factors. This has been an on-going phenomenon and forecasts suggest that it is going to
stay with us in the future. Given the rapid changes taking place on social, economic, political and
technological fronts in the current environment, COVID 19 pandemic has emerged as a perfect example
of a VUCA landscape. “VUCA is like an on-going test that any organization needs to pass in order to
succeed.

This article gives an example of recruitment where the company prefers someone with the same
background, and how qualities like the ability to sense, ability to respond and ability to learn rapidly are
very essential in an individual for the sustainability in the VUCA world. Hence, it is essential for the
Human Resource Management to make sure that the such qualities and skills are available in the
organization and how they should promote it amongst each other

Sahay, P. (2015), "The complexity of recruiting", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 14 No. 5, pp. 182-187.
https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-04-2015-0034

In his ground breaking book It’s Not the How or the What but the Who, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz
succinctly traces the shifting paradigms of talent spotting, from the era of focus on physical attributes,
moving on to IQ – verbal, analytical, mathematical and logical cleverness – to the “competency & skills”
movement we see today. He further argues that in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous
environment of today, competency-based appraisals and appointments are increasingly insufficient, and
organizations must navigate to a new era of talent spotting – one in which our evaluations of one
another are based not on brawn, brains, experience or competencies, but on potential. Geopolitics,
business, industries and jobs are changing so rapidly that we cannot predict the competencies needed
to succeed even a few years out: The lesson: Recruitment models of today must factor this new
imperative & identify and on-board people by moving into the deeper waters of understanding a
potential hire(s) psychology and motivation

However, digital convenience comes at the expense of meaningful engagement, as digital transactions
substitute physical interactions – and the trust and relationship capital they build, which is centric to the
logic of the recruiting function. The challenge for the recruiting function here is to face the implications
of digital change: in particular the loss of control over the candidate relationship, increased competition
and threat of commoditization and the need to engage digitally with all key stakeholders in the
recruiting value chain

KESHAVA- Holistic Employee Selection Framework in the VUCA World

The existing KSA framework (knowledge, skill and attitude) is an integral part of job analysis and
especially job specification for most organizations today. In the VUCA world, KSA framework as a
selection tool can fall short in assessing the right candidates who are having good character and
competence. It does not capture the potential employee’s values, emotional intelligence, hardworking
orientation and the ambition to grow and self actualize. This makes KSA framework insufficient to check
for the employee-job fit and especially employee-organization fit for any organization which wishes to
compete, win and achieve excellence in VUCA world. Nishkama-Karma Model is useful in employee
selection but it does not discuss the skill dimension and does not directly discuss hardworking
orientation, ambition to self-actualize and emotional intelligence which are critical qualities needed in
employees of an organization which wants to excel in VUCA world. Given the narrow approaches
adopted by majority of the organizations, the need for a holistic framework is very high. In the next
section, an attempt to propose a holistic framework is made.

1. https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-the-coronavirus-crisis-is-redefining-jobs

With jobs at the heart of how work gets done, leaders have an unprecedented opportunity to reimagine
them by rearranging work and having employees take on different responsibilities to better respond to
the evolving needs of their organizations, customers, and employees. We propose three ways to shift
work, talent, and skills to where and when they are needed most, thereby building the organizational
resilience and agility necessary to navigate uncertain times and rebound with strength when the
economy recovers.

3.

COVID-19’s Uncomfortable Revelations About Agile and Sustainable Organizations in a VUCA World

Much ink has been spilled defining COVID-19 as similar to or different from other crises. If it’s a black
swan (Taleb, 2007), we can learn from the signals we ignored and beef up sensing routines. If it is an
environmental jolt (Meyer, 1982), we will adjust and wait it out until things return to normal (although
the virus may be a 2-year jolt during which permanent changes might occur). Finally, if this situation is a
normal VUCA occurrence, we cannot be sure what to do. It is also possible that this crisis is something
entirely new and merits its own designation

Organizations confronting the realities of a COVID-19 world find themselves managing challenging and
unprecedented demands: redeploying talent, establishing remote workforces, building needed
capabilities, propping up distressed supply chains, contributing to humanitarian efforts, choosing among
firing/furloughing/ retaining employees, and planning for reopening amid uncertainty.

As reference, we define organization agility as the capability to make timely, effective, and sustained
change when it results in a performance advantage (Worley et al., 2014).

2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2020/03/31/the-impact-of-the-coronavirus-on-hr-
and-the-new-normal-of-work/#519b1f212b60

Skills-based Hiring Will Move from The New Normal to The Normal
More companies will move from hiring based on degree pedigree to hiring based on skills and more
apprenticeship jobs will surge.

I spoke with Ravi Kumar, President of Infosys Ltd, on how the coronavirus will impact businesses. Ravi
wrote his point of view in an inspirational LinkedIn article, Thinking Out Loud, on the confluence of
opposites born in unprecedented times, such as an increased need for collaboration while we work
remotely or the need to reap benefits of global interconnectedness along with local resilience.

Organizations, even as they deal with the challenges of the here and now, are putting into place plans
for their post-COVID recovery. Transforming their talent models and digitizing their talent value chains
will be a big focus area.

Kumar predicts a surge in skills-based hiring as more companies outsource routine tasks to machines
and humans focus on uniquely human skills of creativity and critical thinking. Kumar says, “I see a future
where machines will handle problem solving and humans will focus on problem finding.” That vision has
committed Infosys to be a leader in the skills-based hiring movement, where the company focuses on
recruiting candidates with the skills and capabilities they need rather than on their degree pedigree.
Infosys partners with various community colleges in the country to hire for the right skills. In anticipation
of the large scale digitization of workplaces, Infosys is stepping up its effort accelerating this with the
recently launched Digital Apprentice program for community college students to learn-earn-work in
order to land digital backbone jobs.

Organizations will Double Down on Re-Skilling Workers

While some organizations like Amazon, SAP, Walmart, AT&T, PwC and Guardian Life Insurance have
already announced plans to re-skill large segments of their workforce, the challenge for more companies
will be to go beyond designing one-off training programs. This challenge will be much bigger than any
one program. Instead, companies will create an ecosystem devoted to creating an AI powered skills
inventory, reskilling and and exploring new private partnerships with traditional and non-traditional
institutions of learning, as well as ed tech startups.

Article: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Job Search Behavior:An Event Transition Perspective

Job search involves psychological processes, behaviors, and contexts surrounding an individual’s attempt
to find and get a job.

We theorize that the financial and health-related consequences of theCOVID-19 pandemic affect the
type of jobs to which applicants apply. We show that the onset of the pandemic produces a sizable shift
in job search behavior toward jobs that require less physical contact

The COVID-19 pandemic is producing unprecedented global health and economic disruptions. Workers
and organizations alike are struggling to adapt to “the new normal” (Alter & Villa, 2020;Mull, 2020;
Solomon, 2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a particularly strongmacro event because it occurs at a high level
(i.e., at the globalomnibus level) and is higher in novelty, disruption, and criticalitythan most macro
events, as predicted by event system theory(Morgeson et al., 2015). First, the last event similar to
theCOVID-19 pandemic was the 1918 flu epidemic; thus, it is highlynovel. Second, the pandemic is
extremely disruptive as it led entirecountries to shut down their businesses, prohibited most travel,
andresulted in stay-at-home orders across the nation almost immedi-ately. Third, the pandemic is
critical in the sense that it has bothfinancial implications and health consequences

Bianchi (2020) notes that “reces-sions provoke uncertainty and a loss of control” (p. 121). Individ-uals
tend to respond to such threats by seeking to regain control,and one way this can be accomplished is by
proactively applyingto new jobs (Bianchi, 2013; Porter et al., 2019; Wanberg, Ali, etal., 2020; Wanberg et
al., 2012). Thus, job search research sup-ports the inference that applications will increase under
conditionsof uncertainty and stress because job search offers a means to copewith these stressors,
particularly in the short term (Trope & Liber-man, 2010; Wanberg, Kanfer, & Rotundo, 1999).

Recognizing that the onset transition is different from the postonset period helps firms better react to
change. For example, it may seem apparent that people will apply to work-from-home jobs when a
pandemic begins. However, the difficult question facing managers is whether these effects are strong
enough hand last long enough to justify investing in work-from-home opportunities. Strategy is about
making choices about where to invest and where not to invest. Should firms make more work-from-
home opportunities, recognizing that doing so will require significant resource investments (e.g.,
hardware, infrastructure),training (performance management), and cultural change

The pandemic’s novelty obviously decreased after theonset transition period. However, as the virus
became more wide-spread, the pandemic’s disruption and criticality likely increased.1Unemployment
rates and layoffs began to rise sharply, and thenumber of people not able to work increased because of
shut-downs. The growing environmental uncertainty during the poston-set period likely contributed to
greater employment uncertaintyand thus more applications (Bianchi, 2013; Porter et al., 2019;Wanberg
et al., 2012; Wanberg, van Hooft, et al., 2020).

Job search is punctuated by manyacute events, including college graduation, job acceptance, and
jobloss. A nascent area of research is starting to recognize that macroevents may also influence search,
such that job search during timesof hardship and uncertainty contributes to a loss of control orincreased
gratitude (Bianchi, 2020; Peterson & Seligman, 2003)

International HRM insights for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for future research
and practice

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7266413/

IHRM has taught us that some people are naturally better than others at managing stress and
uncertainty, enabling them to make better decisions and work more effectively across countries and
cultures (Shaffer et al., 2006). Employees with a higher tolerance of ambiguity are less likely to
experience the negative effects of stress caused by working in a context with greater uncertainty
(Frone, 1990). Employees with resilience not only bounce back after stressful situations but also find
positive meaning from them (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004). Likewise, employees with
natural curiosity can adapt better to novel situations, thrive in situations of anxiety and uncertainty, and
be more creative and open-minded (Hagtvedt, Dossinger, Harrison, & Huang, 2019; Kashdan, Sherman,
Yarbro, & Funder, 2013).
During this period of global stress and uncertainty, organizations (and especially MNEs) should select for
these three critical, cultural agility competencies: tolerance for ambiguity, resilience, and curiosity for all
employees working multiculturally. Employees working, even virtually, with clients, vendors, or
colleagues from different cultures will now, more than ever, need these competencies to be effective.
Selection is key. Companies can also use this time to better assess their bench strength for culturally
agile talent in order to understand who will be most effective in situations of growing novelty and
uncertainty.