The Lasting Effects of Covid-19 on Human Capital Management

 

Without a doubt, Covid-19 has been an accelerator for the biggest workplace transformations in recent memory. In fact, the pandemic has pushed many companies, big and small, to rapidly adopt new systems that affect how we work, learn and communicate.

 

We speak to Laurel Teo, an SMU PhD student in Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources, and Devasheesh Bhave, SMU Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour & Human Resources, on the changes that the pandemic has brought about. Laurel’s research focuses on the psychological impact of artificial intelligence and how emerging technologies and trends affect the future workplace, in addition to privacy and ethical issues in organisations.

Laurel and Dev discuss evidence-based findings and their views on the abrupt en-masse shift to working from home and its challenges. They also discuss how human capital management, HR policies and strategies need to pay greater attention to employee health and well-being amid this dramatic transformation.

 

The Work-From-Home Model

Perhaps the most significant workplace disruption triggered by Covid-19 is the abrupt conversion from working in the office to working-from-home as the mainstream work arrangement. Laurel explains that although the technology to facilitate remote working has existed for years well before the onset of the pandemic, only 2.9 per cent of employees worldwide were involved in WFH pre-Covid (International Labour Organisation).

 

Why then did companies not implement WFH schemes earlier? Laurel and Dev share two possible reasons: difficulty in monitoring employees working remotely, and low levels of trust.

 

“Evidence from earlier studies suggest that many employers and managers appear convinced that ‘we cannot manage what we cannot see’,” notes Laurel and Dev.

 

“And indeed, when government lockdowns first forced employers to implement work-from-home scenarios, an overwhelming concern voiced by employers – both in the popular press and in survey studies – was that their employees would slack off. Yet thus far, there has been limited evidence that the workforce is slacking off or has become inefficient.”

 

Even during Singapore’s recent Heightened Alert phase (May 16 – June 13, 2021), there were employers who still persisted in having their staff report in the office daily, instead of following the default WFH mandate. And while some other companies may have allowed their staff to work off-site, they insisted on teams staying connected throughout the workday either via webcam or internal office systems to ensure that they are not slacking off.

 

And while Laurel and Dev do not completely rule out the possibility of a few bad apples in a company, who may require closer monitoring during WFH arrangements, they add that overall, there has been little evidence of systematic shirking of work responsibilities by employees across organisations.

 

Instead, they suggest that companies focus on building more trust with employees: “Rather than designing practices and formulating policies around the few isolated incidents of employees who are shirking responsibilities, organisations could build more trust with employees because it is neither sustainable nor healthy to increase monitoring just because employees are not in direct line of sight.”

 

Furthermore, the recent resurgence of Covid-19 infections worldwide could be an indication that the resumption of full operations for corporate organisations might not be happening any time soon. In short, a work-from-home or hybrid model that combines time in the office and remote work will most likely be the norm in the foreseeable immediate and mid-term future.

 

Ultimately, Laurel and Dev explain that these events “reinforce the need for organisations to build trust by being flexible in their management practices and application of corporate policies”. And this is important as companies also expect their staff to be equally flexible with the changes in government measures and policies.

 

“Reciprocity is an important social glue that can bridge social distance,” they add.

 

The Challenges of Working Remotely: The Need to Communicate More

As much as working from the comforts of home has been welcomed by employees, it is not without its challenges. Although online communication platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Webex have become indispensable tools in organisations, helping to connect staff from all across the globe — Zoom went from approximately 10 million daily users in January 2019 to in 200 million in March 2020, virtual meetings cannot replace in-person meetings completely. In addition, the duo adds that organisations need to recognise the way in which we communicate with and manage people face-to-face should not be replicated wholesale on virtual platforms, or in managing virtual teams.

 

Prior research on virtual teams, according to Laurel, has shown how members often fail to consider that not everyone in the team is aligned with the same information or background knowledge, leading to miscommunication. To prevent such occurrences, Dev recommends making an extra effort to “over-communicate”, especially for employees that are part of virtual or hybrid teams.

 

As team management used to revolve around face-to-face interactions, this is a vital step. Add a digital screen and possible time lag to the mix, and it can make it difficult to read the virtual room, resulting in misread cues that could lead to further misunderstandings and unhappiness among team members.

 

The Need for Greater Focus on Employee Well-Being

More importantly, the added stresses of a work-from-home environment have also highlighted the need for greater employee welfare spearheaded by organisations. In fact, according to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index report in 2020, a third of workers in Asia Pacific cited increased burnout due to the lack of separation between work duties and personal obligations. The study surveyed over 6,000 information and first-line workers across eight countries, and found that Singapore (37 per cent) and India (29 per cent) were among the top two countries with workers facing increased burnout.

 

Such fatigue can be attributed to the lack of WFH boundaries set between work and downtime — the latter of which could even have been in the form of something as simple as a daily commute. Pre-Covid, the precious commute time from office to home could be seen as a signal for our minds to shift from work mode to family mode. But with WFH, the shift never really happens as we are constantly in an office-home environment with no clear boundaries, especially when sharing a space with other family members.

 

In addition, “having a work laptop within easy reach at home and personal mobile devices constantly connected to work-related networks, makes it even more difficult to ‘disconnect’ from work. It is creating what some researchers have termed a norm of ‘continuous availability’,” Laurel and Dev add.

 

From her preliminary research, Laurel has also found that it is “not uncommon for employees who work from home to be anxious about proving their diligence and dispelling any suspicions of them shirking” by “responding more promptly to manager and client requests, and working or being available outside of regular working hours”.

 

This has been corroborated by a study based on Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) usage that found that the workday span on MS Teams was 37 per cent longer for Singapore compared to 25 per cent for people in the US and 27 per cent in the UK. Additionally, a second Microsoft Work Trend Report found that the “brainwave patterns associated with stress and overwork increased when people were collaborating remotely versus in-person, which suggests that remote collaboration is more mentally taxing than in-person collaboration”, says Laurel.

 

How HR Teams Can Help Organisations Move Forward in The New Normal

And while there is abundant research on what motivates employees, increases their satisfaction, or makes them more committed to the company, organisations still need to be mindful when it comes to introducing and implementing new policies in the new normal work environment, say the two.

 

When it comes to introducing the use of new technologies, Laurel explains it would be good for employers to consider the kind of impact — adverse or otherwise, that it might have on employees. Important questions that need to be addressed include whether the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI), for example, in automating processes, could make employees feel like they have reduced autonomy or say in the organisation, or potentially lower employees’ trust in management. And while there is growing research on how AI could affect people’s perceptions of trust and fairness, Laurel and Dev say more research needs to be done on the psychological impact of these new technologies in the workplace.

 

Meanwhile, Laurel also adds that management will also need to be taught “how to lead in a remote, virtual environment”. Some things leaders should consider include:

· How do we motivate or energise a team online, when we can’t do a pep talk face-to-face?

· How can we prevent cyber incivility or cyberbullying?

· Knowing that workdays are already longer when employees work from home, how can we do their part to mitigate that or at least, avoid adding to the length of the workday?

 

To help employees feel invested in their organisations, Laurel and Dev suggest creating activities, both physical and virtual, such as virtual coffee talks or happy hours, as the workplace, even a hybrid one, still “serves as an important source for employees to build social connections”.

Ultimately, these workplace interactions are crucial as “research has shown that workplace interactions can be energising to employees and could help them even when they are back at home”. And when the staff are happy, they are productive and motivated to contribute back to the organisation.