Business Psychology Coursework 2

Student ID: 100592250

INTRODUCTION

In December 2019, an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), initially occurring

in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization
declared the outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. As of February
14, 2020, 49,053 laboratory-confirmed and 1,381 deaths have been reported globally (World
Health Organisation, 2020). Perceived risk of acquiring disease has led many governments to
enforce a variety of control measures such as wearing faces masks, face shields, social
distancing and compulsory lockdowns (Harapan et al., 2020).

Coronavirus crisis has had a substantial impact on the world economy, with Britain's
economy shrinking by 20.4% in April, placing the nation for the worst recession in more than
three decades.

Coronavirus (Covid-19) is a new disease that has affected the global in terms of having
significant social, physical, and psychological health impact of workers. The pandemic
created huge psychological pressures on healthcare staff (Irshad et al., 2020) and the global
medical community found the virus difficult to control and treat Covid-19 patients
(Prompetchara et al., 2020).

The positive change has allowed innovation, collaboration and integration of functions a s
teams and organisations pulled together to enable business operations (Peters, 2020).

Variants of coronavirus such as the Delta and South African will affect global public health.
The mutated variants of the coronavirus will require medical experts and pharmaceutical
researchers to develop new vaccines to combat infection in a similar manner to influenza
variants requiring seasonal vaccinations.

Effects on organisations – not only has the COVID-19 pandemic forced organisations and
leaders to think differently, the pandemic has been a catalyst to reinvent the future of the
workplace.

Adoption of new technologies – such as artificial intelligence, The Internet of Things, social
media, apps and e-commerce tools to support consumer demands, allowing automation,
maintaining social distancing measures and increase in sales and turnover (Kumar and
Aydee, 2021). Some small businesses in developing economies have faced difficulties,
adding further to issues impeding sales and revenue (Akpan et al., 2022).
Adoption of new business models, practices and processes – technology processes are
replacing old business methods, with the support of digital transformation (Priyono et al.,
2020).

Ergonomics and health - working from home and studying from home bought challenges.
Home offices may not have had the risk assessment made to ensure that home office furniture
is comfortable and does not post a health and safety risk (Arroyo, 2020).

Organisational Change and impact of COVID-19

Magginson (1963) attributes the ability to adapt to specific changes in the environment in
which the organisation operates that is the potential key to survival in the economic context.
Every organisation undergoes change - whether this is a case of onboarding a new employee,
carrying out merger or taking on a new customer. Organisational change is not always easy to
adapt to nor is it easy to implement. In a study by Stobierski (2020) he defined organisational
change management as:

"Organisational change refers to the actions in which a company or business alters a major
component of its organization, such as its culture, the underlying technologies or
infrastructure it uses to operate, or its internal processes. Organizational change management
is the method of leveraging change to bring about a successful resolution, and it typically
includes three major phases: Preparation, implementation, and follow-through."

There are other management theorist who have put forward definitions of change
management. Such examples are Lewin’s 3 Step Change Model (1947) and Kottler’s 8 Step
Change Model.

Lewin’s Three Step Change Model (1947) - states that restraining forces influence the
behavior of both the group and individuals. The driving forces motivate employees towards
the new state. The restraining forces highlight potential resistance to change, acting as the
barriers to change initiatives. There are 3 stages:

Stage 1 - Unfreeze - The first stagel deals with perception and aims to prepare the affected
stakeholders for the upcoming organisational change. Change leaders must look at ways to
improve the company’s preparedness for change and create a sense of urgency.

During this stage, effective change communication plays a vital role in getting the desired
team member buy-in and support of the people in the change management.

Stage 2 - Change - Once the status quo is disrupted, this stage deals with the implementation
of change. In this stage, you must consider an agile and iterative approach that incorporates
employee feedback to smoothen the transition.

Stage 3 - Refreeze - Employees move away from the transition phase towards acceptance in
the final’ refreezing’ stage.

Kottlers 8 Step Change Model

John Kotter (1996) introduced 8 Step Model of Change which he developed on the basis of
research of 100 organizations which were going through a process of change.

In summary, the model consists of the following; create a sense of urgency, recruit powerful
change leaders, build a vision and effectively communicate it, remove obstacles, create quick
wins, and build on your momentum. If you do these things, you can help make the change
part of your organizational culture (Management Study Guide, 2021).

● Criticisms of the Kotters Model - as a step by step missing even a single step might
result in serious problems.
● Quite time consuming (Rose, 2002).
● Top-down model and discourages any scope for participation or co-creation.
 ● Can lead to frustration/dissatisfaction among the employees if the individual
requirements are given due attention.

Employee and attitudes to work during Covid-19

Workers may not want to return to the office work environment after the lifting of restrictions
after the pandemic. This could be due to some of the advantages of working from home and
risks associated with dealing with localised outbreaks of strains of coronavirus.

Organisations have been forced to do things differently during the pandemic in order to
continue business operations some of the commons patterns in business practices include:
● Staff working from home,
● Remote working and remote management,
● Furloughed employees
● Dependence on online shopping and delivery drivers during the pandemic

According to Winston (2020) writing in the Harvard Business Review, notes several changes
that organisations had undertaken during the pandemic as business processes and practices
were re-examined:

● Collaboration in the medical and pharmaceutical sector – Companies like

AstraZeneca and Pzifer collaborator with research institutes and universities such as
Oxford to develop a viable COVID-19 vaccine to reduce infection rates.
● Economic inequality – became more apparent as the income of top earners increased
– about $50 trillion in the United States, examples include Jeff Bezos, as a surge in
online sales due to the need for isolation and non-contact became paramount.
● Business support – an injection of around $20 trillion of stimulus cash to help
businesses to stay afloat,
● Equality and inclusivity – the killing of George Floyd led to global protests and a
conversation about racial equality and police brutality in societies around the world.
Organisations adopted the conservations around racial equality and the need for better
employee relations towards ethnic minority employees and to eliminate racial
discrimination in the workplace.
● Reduction in carbon emissions and climate change debate – organisations had to
consider a focus on the green agenda and the need for organisations to reduce their
carbon footprint and reduce the impact on the environment. The economic shutdown
reduced emission by about 7%, highlighting the need to tackle climate change.
Companies like Google committed to becoming carbon neutral and using on-site
renewable energy by 2030.
● Innovations by businesses to tackle issues in the global medical supply chains –
global supply chains were stressed and medical equipment such as gloves and masks
which were produced in locations such as Wuhan, ironically, were shut down.
Companies such as Ford and 3M collaborated together to build respirators, General
Electric and Auto United Workers produced ventilators and IBM and the U.S.
Department of Energy created High Performance Computing Consortium to offer
world class computing resources to the scientific community.
● Mass redundancies and pay cuts – Entire industries such as the hospitality and retail
industries were badly affected by the pandemic with many people losing their jobs or
being furloughed. Many food and commercial channel retail businesses lost sales but
gained in terms of online retail sales. Some Chief Executives took pay cuts to help
save money for the salaries of employees. Companies like Hertz filed for bankruptcy,
 while some bankrupt companies like Chesapeake Energy used loopholes to ensure
executives got paid millions while laying off employees and shutting offices.
● A rethink on the use of fossil fuels –Around 90% of the new electricity generated
was added to the grid globally in 2020 was renewable energy and the price for
building solar hitting 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Clean energy will displace
dependency on coal by 2025.
● Definition of Corporate Social Responsibility being examined and expanded - as
a result of being more ethically minded towards society and people.

Governments and their policy makers have realised that the preventative measures, including
lockdown conditions, that were mandated during the first wave of COVID-19, could not be
sustained in the long term. Many countries have eventually eased their restrictions to
revitalise their economies (Camilleri, 2021).

The global pandemic had a more profound impact on small businesses in comparison to
larger corporations which have access to more resources. In Nigeria, small businesses lost
revenue, reduced staff salaries, the ability to pay rent and loans. The ideal solutions suggested
to the research team, was reduce inflation, interest and taxation rates (Aladejebi, 2020).

EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

Motivation is defined by Robbins (1993) is the "willingness to exert high levels of effort
toward organisational goals, conditioned by the effort's ability to satisfy some individual
need." A need in this context is an internal state that makes certain outcomes appear
attractive. An unsatisfied need creates tension that stimulates drives within the individual.
These drives generate a search behaviour to find particular goals that if, attained, will satisfy
the need and lead to the reduction of tension (Robbins, 1993). Most motivational theorists
agree that motivation requires a desire to act, an ability and having an objective (Ramlall,
2004).

The term motivation is derived from the Latin work movere, meaning to move (Kretiner,
1998). Motivation represents '"those psychological process that cause the arousal, direction
and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal orientated (Mitchell, 1982, p.81).

Employees are a primary asset in every organisation, who achieve their goals (Azizi et al,
2021). Employees were once considered a factor of output in terms of production, this
narrative changed with the Hawthorne Studies conducted by Elton Mayo from 1924 to 1932
(Dickson, 1973). The study concluded those employees are not solely motivated by money
and employee behaviour linked that attitude (Dickson, 1973), the needs and motivation
became the primary focus of managers (Bedeian, 1993). Getting people to do their best work,
even in the most difficult circumstances, is one of the challenges faced by managers,
deciphering what motivates us as human being is a puzzle. Early theorists lacked research
from neuroscience and relied on observations based upon workplace investigations (Nohria,
Groysberg and Lee, 2008).

Classical motivational theories

What motivated employees and how employees were motivated was the sole focus of
researchers following the publication of the Hawthorne Studies results (Terpstra, 1979). Five
main approaches existed in employee motivation, these were Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
theory, Hertzberg two factor theory, Vroom's expectancy theory, Adam's equity theory and
Skinner's reinforcement theory (Linder, 1998). Classical motivation theories like that of
Abraham Maslow and the Hierarchy of Needs are relevant. The Hierarchy of Needs can be
summarised as: five categories of human needs dictate an individual’s behavior. Those needs
are physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-
actualization need (Maslow, 1943).

Criticism of classical motivation theories

According to Neher (1991), there are criticisms towards Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

● Researchers have proven that there is a lack of hierarchy, some people's needs may be
deprived but may want self actualisation e.g. Mahatma Ghandi.
● Lack of direct cause cause effect relationship between need and behaviour.
● Needs and satisfaction of Needs is a psychological feel. Managers would not know
this.
● One problem with Maslow's theory is the methodology of testing his ideas such as
measuring self actualisation.

How is employee motivation linked to peformance management?

According to Dobre (2013) and Honore (2009), many organisations are competition against
each other and competition to survive, motivation and performance are essential tools for
organisations to ensure survival. Literature demonstrates that empowerment and recognition
of employees is increased, their motivation to work will improve, which in turn, increases
organisational and employee performance.

Employee dissatisfaction caused by monotonous jobs and very high pressure from clients,
can potentially weaken organisational and employee performance, leading to absenteeism and
turnover of staff. However, not all employees are the same, as one individual may be
motivated by their renumeration, another may be motivated by better working conditions.
(Dobre, 2013). The most important asset that any organisation has is their human capital
(Honore, 2009).

Shahzadi, et al. (2014) found that a significant and positive relationship with employee
performance and employee motivation. Employee perceived training effectiveness has
negative relationship with motivation, however this was down to the training being assessed
by the participants as being ineffective in terms of implementation and affected their
motivation to teach.

Managers need to have an enhanced understanding of employee motivation and recognise the
imperativeness of employee motivation, its concepts and differences in individual needs..
Managers need to learn previous and current motivational programs, examples, and theories
behind them because understanding of these fundamentals can enhance their ability to
identify reward systems that could be matched with employee needs and employees should
be involved in the process (Kim, 2006).

Many organisations experienced significant decline, their employees were concerned about
their job security and long term employment prospects (Camilleri, 2021).

Many businesses imposed new health and safety regulations in their premises – a hygiene
factor according to Hertzberg (1966). Organisations introduced new hygienic practices,
temperature checks and expected their visitors to wear masks, to reduce the spread of the
virus (Camilleri, 2021).

Impact of COVID-19 on employee motivation and leadership

Hygiene factors such as working conditions where employees are exposed to a high risk of
transmission in the workplace, remedies such as screens, face masks and ventilation systems
can be used as a measure. COVID-19 has a had a huge impact on the motivation of
employees, as the pandemic took its toll, the following could be observed in terms of
motivation of employees, accord to Ennova survey (2020):

● Increased job insecurity,

● Virtual collaboration with colleagues
● Remote teams and work from home,

The Royal Society of Public Health (2021) has carried out a survey named "Survey reveals
the mental and physical health impacts of home working during Covid-19."

As homeworking is set to continue being the norm after COVID-19 restrictions have been
lifted, there are key health and wellbeing differences between groups of people who made the
move to home working during the pandemic.

According to the survey from the Royal Society of Public Health (2021), there have been
advantages and disadvantages to mental health and homeworking that need to be highlighted.

The advantages discussed have been highlighted are

● Individuals felt that working from home was better from their health and wellbeing
(45%),
● Older people aged 35+ were more likely to think that working from home was better
for their health and wellbeing compared to 18-34 year-olds (48% vs. 34%).
● Many have saved on travel costs and,
● No office distractions.

Disadvantages

● 29% felt that working from home was worse for their health and wellbeing,
● Individuals who switched to working from home during the pandemic had
experienced health and well being impacts such as
● 67% who felt that they were less connected to colleagues,
 ● 46% were excercising less,
● 39% had developed musculoskeletal probems and 37% had disturbed sleep,
● Over one in four (26%) are working from home from either a sofa or a bedroom
● Almost half of respondents, (48%), who work from a sofa or bedroom said they had
developed musculoskeletal problems and nearly two thirds (59%) said they felt more
isolated from their colleagues.
● Women more likely to feel isolated that men (58% of women V 39% of men)
● Women were likely to develop musculoskeletal problems (44% of women vs. 29% of
men) as a result of working from home.
● Home working is having an impact on people’s mental health, with 67% saying they
felt less connected to their colleagues. 56% say they found it harder to switch off.
● However only a third of respondents had been offered support with their mental
health (34%) from their employer.
● People who live with multiple housemates were more likely to think that working
from home was worse for their health and wellbeing (41%), compared to people who
live on their own (29%) or with just their partner (24%)
● Survey also showed that the vast majority of people did not want to go back to
working in an office full time, with nearly three quarters of people (74%) saying that
they wanted to split their time between home working and working in an office.

There are health and wellbeing issues which are affecting home workers and some groups of
people are impacted more than others needs to be addressed by employers. Employers to
ensure that all employees have access to mental health support to help them to cope with
increased isolation and anxiety (

Organisations to develop a culture that encourages employees to separate their work and
home life when working from home, including encouraging employees to block their work
communications outside of work hours

Three factors represent the main advantages of WFH:

(i) work–life balance,

(ii) improved work efficiency and

(iii) greater work control.

The main disadvantages were:

(iv) home office constraints,

(v) work uncertainties and

(vi) inadequate tools.

These factors are considered to help organisations understand where measures need to be
taken to safeguard both performance and well-being.

COVID-19 and the impact on employees, in summary are the following points:

● Employees have to adopt new ways of working such as remote and hybrid modes of
working
● Employees have to adopt new values and
● Employees had to undergo rapid re-skilling – the adoption of new technologies mean
that employees will need to upskilled to deal with new technologies such as use of
videoconferencing and online collaboration tools.
● Creation of new roles
● Organisations will need to invest in resources to provide employees support services
such as wellbeing mental health support.

Work related stress is defined as a harmful reaction that people have to undue pressures and
demands placed on them at work (Health and Safety Executive, 2021). According to the
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), mental health related absence is
the most common cause of absence in UK workplaces, leading to increased staff turnover,
reduced engagement and presenteeism (CIPD, 2021). Maintaining adequate levels of work
performance has been detrimentally affected by the pandemic, taking toll on the worker’s
performance (Saleem et al, 2021), employees experiencing work stress feel their autonomy is
decreasing and may not perform to a require standard (Pulfrey et al, 2013). Employees
working in a risky environment may demand an increased pay rate to justify working
condition. The health hazards place an extra burden on employees but organisation have to
face additional costs relating to wage increases, mental health services provision and
maintaining health and safety standards (McCalister, 2006).

There is a possible of risk of employee burnout due to the lack of psychological safety factors
in the workplace and not feeling heard in the face of uncertainty (Kerrissey, 2022).

There was an estimated 822,000 workers affected by work-related stress, depression or

anxiety. In 2020/21, this accounted for 50% for all work related ill health. Workers in certain
occupations such as healthcare, protective services, customer services and teaching were
more prominently affected that other types of workers (Health and Safety Executive, 2021).
Additional psychological impact on workers is mental confusion and social deprivation as a
result of social distance measures, lockdown on non-essential businesses and quarantine
(Yildrim and Arslan, 2020).

The economic impact of COVID-19 has led to surge in youth unemployment, as some
countries now have a youth population with far fewer opportunities (Kirby, 2020). Previous
recessions have had mental health impact for individuals entering the labour market. During
economic downturns, there is an increase in mental health problems, including depression
and lower levels of wellbeing, more cases of suicide, increased domestic violence and
increase dependency on alcohol and drugs (Faculty of Public Health, 2020).

Unemployment – poorer mental health though the psychological effects of being unemployed
such as stigma, isolation, self-esteem and psychological impact of loss of income. This is
more evident in long term unemployed, with increase in suicide risk (Faculty of Public
Health, 2020).
Job insecurity – employed individuals are faced with uncertainty with future job prospects,
increased work demands, financial problems leading to increase in sick leave. There is
evidence to suggest there is an increase in poverty and homelessness rates, further adding to
the mental health challenges faced by employees. The effects of an economic downturn leads
to increased pressure on the health services to provide that support, despite financial
constraints (Faculty of Public Health, 2020).

Critical leadership role to motivate and inspire employees.

According to Northouse (2007), leadership is defined as:

'Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a
common goal.'

Using a case study of nurses in the healthcare sector in Pakistan, many nurses were reporting
symptoms of depression and anxiety. Supportive leadership and psychological capital had a
positive impact on the physical, psychological and social wellbeing during the pandemic.
Supportive leadership is defined as attitudes and behaviours, and communication by
supervisors that help workers by enabling them to working effectively and productively
(Muller et al., 2009). Psychological capital is defined as 'an individual's positive
psychological state of development.' (Luthans et al., 2007).

Social exchange theory exhibits good relationship, trust and understanding (Li and Liao,
2014). Social exchange theory evidences that trusting employees can bring positive change in
the organisation and motivate employees towards their targeted goals (Gouldner, 1960). Staff
can reach higher levels of communication and achieve common goals (Usman et al., 2021).

COVID-19 impact on employee recruitment

According to Werther and Davis (1996), recruitment is defined as:

“Recruitment is the process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. The
process begins when new recruits are sought and ends when their applications are submitted.
The result is a pool of applicants from which new employees are selected”.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered one of the worst jobs crises since the Great
Depression. The crisis will lead to an increase in poverty rates and widen inequalities, with
the impact felt for years to come. Governments will need to develop policies to stop this jobs
crisis from turning into a social crisis. Building a better and more resilient labour market is an
essential investment in the future and for future generations (OECD, 2020).

 The pandemic allowed organisations and employees to adapt to a ‘new normal’ where some
of the changes within society and organisational practices, will be here to stay in the future as
there are opportunities to take advantage of. We consider impact of the pandemic within
recruitment and opportunities that have arisen due to it.

Recruitment has stopped due to the pandemic – certain industries could not operate during
the pandemic, this included industries such as retail, hospitality, tourism and airline industry.

(i) Due to restrictions enforced by governments on travel, social distance and

 gatherings, influenced the long-term health and safety of tourism and hospitality
workers. Many employees in the hospitality and restaurant sector were placed on
furlough, made redundant or lost their jobs, further adding to the poor mental
health of workers in these industries (Davahli, 2020).

(ii) Retail industry could not trade due to the travel restrictions and lockdown,
compulsory lockdown ensured non-essential services had to close. Retailers of
essential goods such as food, groceries, and healthcare are experienced increased
demand opportunities for serving consumers at home via online marketing
distribution channels. Retailers faced challenges of inventory, supply chain
management, delivery, while keeping their facility a safe environment. Retailers
of non-essential goods, such as apparel and footwear, are faced a significant drop
in sales and had to adopt new ways to reach and engage customers who are
shopping from their home, just to sustain themselves. Some manufacturers and
retailers are even changed their product mix to suit the demand arising from the
COVID-19 crisis (e.g., shoe manufacturers creating facemasks, spirit
manufacturers using the same alcohol ingredient for producing and selling hand
sanitisers during the present crisis) (Roggveen and Sethuraman, 2020).

(iii) Airlines was heavily affected as the disease passed easily from people to people in
close quarters and crowed spaces, as a result governments prohibited cross-
country travel.  To support the airline industry, several alleviation policies may
deal with mergers and acquisitions, tax policy, and government subsidies. These
policies will increase the national debt, however, firm liquidation in the airlines
industry could potential disrupt the global supply chain and related businesses
(Maneenop and Kotcharin, 2020).

Within the hospitality sector there were around 660,000 job losses in the UK (McAllister,
2021). According to Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) said the job cuts represent
about 18% of the UK’s travel industry jobs. 39,000 people had already lost their jobs or been
told their job was at risk, as the sector worst affected by the coronavirus crisis (Partridge,
2020). According to the Centre of Retail Research (CRR), nearly 180,00 retail jobs were lost
in the UK. The Centre for Retail Research warned that will be more job losses in 2021 as
retailers face rent payment and cash flow issues (Haigh, 2020).

Recruitment has continued in other sectors such as logistics, online retail companies and
industries where key workers were required.

The pandemic had huge impact on the recruitment industry - According to Pertemps
(2020), there has been a steep decline in the recruitment industry since the start of the
pandemic. Government initiatives such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, however
has not remedied the situation. Some businesses had to halt recruitment, while others have
had to launch recruitment campaigns to cope with the demands of recruitment of key
workers.

Employee recruitment, changes and opportunities

Recruitment has undergone changes that will last beyond the pandemic, as organisations have
learned lessons from various perspectives. Some of these changes are considered below:

Virtual interviews - Face-to-face interviews were considered the norm to assess candidates
for their body language, gestures, expressions, engagement, eye contact and presentation.
Video interviews have been adopted to protect recruiters and candidates, using video
conferencing software to conduct virtual interviews. Some may find it challenging to adjust
to this mode of communication, issues related to poor internet connectivity but time and costs
are saved, as no travel costs are incurred and employers do not need to hire rooms to conduct
face-to-face interviews.

Flexible location – the vast majority of organisations have taken part of or all their
operations online. Work from home has become the standard mode of work, where it is
possible. With the strong internet connection, location has become irrelevant. Organisations
save on overhead costs associated with heating, facilities, car parking and office costs.

Access to wider talent pool – with a flexible location, there is scope for organisations to
recruit employees from any part of the country, or even the globe. Thus, the need for airline
travel, logistics, visas and housing costs has been negated for employees.

Companies need to sell themselves – with the changing economic environment, candidates
will have more choice about which companies they want to work for and under better
circumstances, such better pay, benefits and working conditions. As organisations find it
harder to recruit, they must offer better person specifications, better use of technology, work-
from-home and flexibility.

Need for job security – job security will be valued a lot more and employees will want more
established companies. Smaller businesses will lose out on talent. Industries such as retail,
hospitality and real estate were badly hit. However, healthcare, technology and IT has seen a
boom.

Organisational culture is important – company culture will be valued over perks, as

workers are working from home, physical workplace benefits become less important.

Importance of company reputation – candidates have awareness of company reputation

and will want to work for the most secure form of employment in the face of uncertainty and
organisations will need to consider this when retaining and attracting talent.

COVID-19 impact on Employee Engagement

Numerous definitions of employee engagement exist, here are two:

“Employee Engagement is the emotional commitment that an employee has to their

organisation, their fellow employees, vision and goals - usually mistaken for high salaries or
employee satisfaction, many companies see it as an human resources issue when it should a
business one” (Kewalramani, 2021).

Another definition of employee engagement is provided by Shuck and Wallard (2009):

“An emergent and working condition as a positive cognitive, emotional, and behavioral state
directed toward organizational outcomes.”

Employees who are engaged are better workers. Definitions of employee engagement
commonly describe employees who are happier, healthier, more fulfilled and motivated.
Organisations who have a commitment to employee engagement, can measure the employee
engagement as a key metric, tend to have better employee performance. Positive employee
engagement has a direct correlation to business metrics showing better performance,
customer satisfaction rates, productivity, innovation, staff retention, efficiency and health and
safety performance. However, research does show a relationship between correlations not
causation, performance differences are too small to be merely observed, so further
investigation is required, more engaged workers will perform better but performance
improvement will lead to more engaged workers (CIPD, Employee engagement and
motivation, 2021).

Considering the definition of employee engagement, there is a need to understand how the
COVID-19 pandemic impacted on employees in terms of happiness, health, and motivation.
The pandemic has been challenging for both employers and employees, forcing both to make
changes. Carrying out their jobs under different and difficult circumstances, reshaping
organisational approach to employee engagement.

According to the State of Employee Engagement (2021) report, employee engagement has
decreased for:

● Workers on the frontline although for office workers, there was a slight increase.
There was a decline of 49% of organisations with mostly frontline or on-site workers
in terms of employee engagement over the past year. In comparison, just 31% of
organisations that were office-based or remote, and 36% of firms that were a mix of
office and frontline, saw engagement decline over the same period.
● Office-based or hybrid based roles were more likely to have seen an improvement in
employee engagement over the last year (35% for office-based roles and 37% for
hybrid roles) compared to firms that were mostly frontline (25%).
● 25% of office-based firms 19% of mixed and 18% of frontline firms said employee
engagement stayed the same, while 9.7% and 9% respectively answered ‘don’t
know’(BuildHR Management Consultants Private Limited, 2021).

The impact of COVID-19 led to pressures on frontline workers, affecting their health and
wellbeing, with the inability to work remotely had predictably impacted engagement. Low
levels of employee engagement will lead to talent leaving organisations that do not engage
effectively with their employees – making it more difficult to recruit, so it is important for
employers to make efforts in retention and employee engagement according to Steven Frost
(WorkBuzz, 2021).

According to Urquhart (2021), some of reasons to employees becoming dissatisfied is due to

frontline workers being in direct contact with customers, increasing the probability of
infection.
 ● Frontline workers are in direct contact with customers, are vulnerable to infection, and
have little to no opportunity to voice their concerns and be heard, their view being
rarely solicited and gain feedback. This approach allows for innovative thinking to
develop and progress.
● Outdated technology posed efficiency challenges for workers, where most
organisations have undertaken mobile technology to streamline processes that is not a
drain on efficiency and engagement.
● Report found that office workers found benefits such as the ability to work remotely
such as reduced travel costs and juggle childcare with work during the pandemic.
● The report suggested organisations offer benefits to frontline staff such as enhanced
pay, reduction in weekend work, enhanced holidays and favourable shift patterns.

Research undertaken during the pandemic, shows that employee engagement has a significant
and positive impact on organisational performance, allowing organisations new opportunities
to learn and implement. Knowledge sharing has a significant and positive impact on
organisational performance. As organisations offer remote and mixed modes of working, one
of the biggest challenges for human resource managers is how to effectively manage the
employee (Ahmed, 2020).

Solutions to management are offered, according to Kewalramani (2020), to nurture an

emotional connection between the workplace and employee. These are:

Take a supportive management approach – giving potential recruits and employees the
option of remote or hybrid working. Management need to train and allow employees to use
technologies such as video conferencing software and offer a system to manage employees
and gain feedback. Coaching, goal setting and enabling effective communication to allow for
problem solving, support and recognition to enable high performance of teams and
individuals.

Create a positive work environment – change of environment as result of remote working

alongside care responsibilities for dependents, was challenging for workers. Flexible working
has allowed workers to carry out their jobs and attend to their personal needs. Managers need
to consider that both work and personal responsibilities affect an employee’s level of
engagement. Management need to ensure that employees have a level of work-life balance
that they can cope with and create a positive working environment by offering working from
home, child care facilities, pet friendly areas, parental leave and mental health days.
Employees are more likely be engaged and emotionally committed to organisational goals
when management value them (Adhitama, 2020).

Encourage trust in leadership – during the pandemic, employees had to place trust in
leaders to make transparent decisions to go in the right direction, so employees had access to
information to what was happening in their organisations. For remote working employees,
the requirement to know how their organisation was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic,
effective communication was vital, which were centred on the direction taken by
organisations, strategic plans for acquiring clients and potential re-shuffling of roles.
Frequent check-ins and transparent conversations between directors, managers and
employees so that employees feel included in what is happening within the organisation.
Employees want to learn about individual growth opportunities, so leaders should invest in
both formal and informal training and development packages, not just training but
constructive feedback and review to allow for continuous improvement, thus boosting long-
term employee engagement.

COVID-19 impact on Talent Management

COVID-19 and the impact it has not only on the business environment on a global scale but
also on various areas of human resource management, is undeniable. There are both
challenges and opportunities that come with the change, both from the perspective of the
organisation and the employee.

What is talent management?

There is a need to define talent management and there are a few definitions to consider.

"Talent management is the systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement,

retention, and deployment of those individuals who are of particular value to an organisation.
This may be through their high potential or because they fulfil critical roles."

Or another shorter definition provided by Christina Pavlou from Workable -

"Talent management is an HR strategy that aims to develop and retain high-performing

employees."

But what is talent and who could we count as a talent?

Talent could be a high performing candidate or a star employee (Pavlou, 2020).

Considering the above the definition, there will be an impact on talent management or
managing high performance employees or highly critical employees, as the effects of both
lockdowns and possible COVID-19 infections occur.

According to research carried out by Aguinis and Burgi-Tian (2021), there are significant
talent management challenges including:
(a) Hiring freezes and layoffs;
(b) Salary freezes, cancelled bonuses, and pay reductions;
(c) How work is done (i.e., teleworking); and
(d) Increased employee stress and burnout.

The global business environment has contracted due to the coronavirus pandemic. The
second quarter of 2020 the US economy dropped by 35% to the same period last year
(Reinicki, 2020). The Eurozone economy experienced a downfall of 12.1% on average
compared to the first quarter of the year. Spain experienced the biggest drop in economic
output at 18.5% (Amaro, 2020).

The great resignation – toxic culture is driving employees to leave their organisations in
high numbers - 24 millions Amercians have already left their jobs.
Companies with healthier cultures and flexibility tend to have lower turnover rates. In other
companies, those are highly innovative, experience high rates of turnover. Factors for the
high number of resignations can be attributed to:
● High levels of stress and depression,
● Higher levels of anxiety,
 ● Lack of flexibility,
● Lack of job security,
● Failure to recognise performance and,
● Poor organisational response to Covid-19.
Managers need to address these issues to lower rates of attrition and increase rates of
retention (Sull, Sull and Zweig, 2022).

Strategic talent management in a post COVID world

According to Hancock and Schaninger (2020) In a post COVID-19 era, HR directors and
Chief Human Resource Officers (CHRO) need to reimagine personnel practices to build
organisational resilience. There is no shortage of new responsibilities and challenges to take
advantage of from new connectivity opportunities to implementing plans for the return to the
office.

COVID-19 crisis is accelerating pre-existing talent management trends by acting upon five
areas for a durable talent strategy for the post-pandemic world.

1. Finding and hiring the right people – efficient and effective hiring is still important
as organisations are developing the role on-campus interviews in the hiring process,
given the success they’ve experienced with remote interviewing methods. With
temporary labour is projected to make a faster recovery, organisations should take full
advantages of the flexible labour on offer.
2. Learning and growing – there is huge transistions caused by COVID-19 crisis and
re-skilling can close those skills gaps.
3. Managing and rewarding performance – the crisis has caused shifts in all areas of
human resource management including talent management, the manner of goals and
performance plans has changed, making remote workers more reliant on performance
management reviews for feedback.
4. Tailoring the employee experience – with the option to work from home there is a
blurred lines between work and life making employee experience more critical. There
is a need for employee engagement. The factors will be considered by recruiters are
where will the talent be based, which roles are important, how much collaboration is
required and where are the offices located.
5. Optimise workforce planning and strategy – workforce planning, strategy and
change is the HR professionals’ domain and most likely to be of a focus in the very
near future. Small number of roles is important and core to business activities. Skill
pools will be important, as employers will need to understand what skills are
important for the future. Talent systems will be a required workforce planning tool for
HR professionals to meet the challenges of the new business environment.

Within the supply chain industry, it will be challenging for managers to meet the demand of
the challenges of the supply chain industry (Van Hoek et. al, 2020). Yet, there is a fair
amount of dismissive attitudes towards people management in the supply chain industry and
shortfalls in talent management (McCarter et al, 2005).

Post-pandemic developments in the workplace and organisations

There are opportunities for organisations to take advantage of, after the pandemic, changing
societal and business environment will make it important to adjust to these changes post-
COVID-19 (BuildHR Management Consultants Private Limited, 2021).

Use of artificial intelligence – for recruitment, selection to hiring, due to social distancing,
automating recruitment to save on costs and protect public health.

Demand for data scientists – increase in data which need to processed into information.
Will lead to more job opportunities for data scientists.

Digital Marketing growth - online content growth, especially while working from home,
lead to cuts in marketing costs. .

Demand for cyber security professionals – due to treats from hackers and remote work
setting, there have been a lot of cybersecurity threats. Leading to a rise in demand for
cybersecurity professionals.

Soft Skills – will hire business school graduates with soft skills like communication, IT,
leadership, flexibility, creativity, critical thinking, empathy and time management.

Flexible candidates demand - Remote working will be the norm as candidates can make
arrangements around the demands of the job.

Conclusion
Organisations need to stay profitable and innovate as part of their strategic plans, against
future plans to move forward. Organisations are cost savings associated with the
organisational change as a result of the pandemic. Using technology to their advantage,
recruitment and retention will be virtual rather than on-site. Organisations and employees
need embrace agile working to adapt.
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