HR Forecast on Post COVID in Software Industry
The purpose of this article is to bring light on “Bringing Back Employees towards Office Environment “.
Practice
There is a saying in the traditional philosophy that anything practiced for 48 days will become part of the regular habit. The employees working particularly in the IT industry have work on the computer only. Whether they are in the office or home or café doesn’t make any difference. Anywhere they can open their laptop and work, attend meetings, answer to the client query, and so on.
Issue
The COVID-19 situation had created a forceful environment that the corporate employees to work from home which may be stressful for some employees and for some it maybe not. But still, all the employees had an experience of working from home for more than 48 days. Thus, when the lockdown ends, there comes a challenge for the Human Resource Manager to bring back the employees to work in the office environment.
Methods
To address this issue immediately after lockdown (phase 1) first, the HR manager should categorize the employees based on their demography. Here, let us categorize them in terms of marital status. The unmarried employees will come to the office after lockdown and start their work. But the married employees who had spent their time in office work at home by taking care of their children and elderly parent at the same time would feel little hesitation to change to work from the office.
After certain months of lockdown (phase two), the unmarried employees may feel discomfort in coming to office as a work from home effect as they would have enjoyed complete freedom in their home regarding timing, food, and sleep. First, the HR should focus on the married and then the unmarried employees,
This comes as a second issue with the COVID-19 situation. The government relaxing the lockdown doesn’t mean that there is no spread of the virus, and nobody knows how the situation will be after the vaccine. Hence as a precautionary measure post lockdown and vaccine also it would be fair to operate the software companies with 50 percent attendance.
Solution
Initially, the employees can be asked to come to the office every alternate week that is if 50 percent of employees come to the office in the first and third week of the month, another 50 Percent of employees come in the second and fourth week of the month. After one month employees can come to the office on alternate days at least for one month, if 50 percent of employees comes on Monday, the other 50 percent comes on Tuesday and so on.
Conclusion
Though the employees have been categorized based on marital status, the HR solution is formulated considering the organization as a single entity. The categorization could be used in the company specific implementation. This plan would satisfy the organization’s needs as well as in bringing all the employees back to the office environment.
(The Personal Note was written by Dr.S.Ragavan, Assistant professor, R.B.Institute of Management Studies, Ahmedabad, Gujarat)