Abstract:
The Human Resource (HR) department is the first to be approached for all employeecentric needs of any organization. The overall HR practices creates an environment and infrastructure that further affects the various stakeholders like individuals, markets and organizations in terms of performance, information, etc. Over the period of time, HR practices have seen huge transformation with response to changes in the economy, technology, socio-cultural diversity, political issues, etc. across nations. However, with the advent of COVID-19 pandemic, which affected the businesses throughout the nations, poses serious challenges for the HR professionals in the organizations. The HR professionals, particularly in the technology organizations faced several challenges pertaining to find solutions to overcome and adapt to the new normal, particularly in India. As per the study conducted by Gartner (2020) and KPMG (2020), it is found that around 88% of the organizations encourages remote working while providing employees with laptops and secure connections, 97% of the employees used their leaves (sick, vacation and paid) for absences during COVID-19 infections, around 27% of the organizations switched to e-webinars and 26% to e-learning mode, etc. This shift in the new HR practices have both positive and negative implications on the organization as well as the employees. Therefore, looking at the current context, the paper highlights the challenges faced by the Indian HR professionals due to the COVID-19 outbreak and thereby formulating various strategies to cope up with the new normal. Secondary and primary data have been collected with the help of a structured questionnaire from the professionals working in HR department in technology organizations. The results show the comparison of the HR practices pre-and-post pandemic. Moreover, various challenges and recommendations are sought from the data analysis. The paper also discusses the managerial implications of the study and scope for further research.
