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COVID-19 Induced New Workplace HR Practices: Practitioners’ Perspectives from India

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  • Sasmita Misra
  • Abhilash Ponnam
  • Pratyush Banerjee

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide a first-hand account of how human resources (HR) practitioners from India are revisiting their traditional perceptions of managing HR in the wake of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This study applies an in-depth interview method to probe the mindset of 13 top-level HR practitioners from India. The time duration of each interview ranged between 45 minutes and 1 hour. The data generated from the qualitative interviews are analysed through latent thematic analysis. The findings throw light on how HR managers in India are rethinking their traditional practices to adjust to the new normal. The themes point to a shift towards a virtual organizational structure, with emphasis given to developing virtual empathy and virtual team building. There is also the resonance of being more future-ready for the potential recurrence of such types of economically disruptive shock events. There is more willingness to hire gig workers and freelancers now given the increased risk of overstaffing in the post-pandemic market. This study provides practitioners with a lot of validity about the way forward in the new world of work-from-home and virtual employment contracts. This is a novel exploration of what some of the senior HR practitioners from India are doing to counter the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic-induced workplace disruption.

Suggested Citation

  • Sasmita Misra & Abhilash Ponnam & Pratyush Banerjee, 2023. "COVID-19 Induced New Workplace HR Practices: Practitioners’ Perspectives from India," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 48(2), pages 261-279, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:manlab:v:48:y:2023:i:2:p:261-279
    DOI: 10.1177/0258042X231155314
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Carlo Drago & Luisa Errichiello, 2024. "Remote Work admist the Covid-19 outbreak: Insights from an Ensemble Community-Based Keyword Network Analysis," Working Papers 2024.05, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.

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