Humanizing Practices for People Management: A Case Study From COVID-19

Abstract

Regardless of where the business stood at the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 afflicted the corporate world as well as most of the workforce worked remotely due to government-mandated isolation. The range of personal and professional problems experienced due to remote working by employees was explored at one of the Non-Financial Banking companies and how the company responded to their well-being by interviewing 124 employees and a senior HR personnel. Remote work induced by COVID-19 was not a cakewalk as 56.5% of employees desired physical connectivity with colleagues, for 50.8% work done from home was not interesting and more than 50% of the respondents agreed to work more hours than usual. The outcome was anxiety for some of them. The imbalance between personal and professional life was dissipated with the support of the management as 94.4% of them got sufficient support from their respective managers and colleagues, as they were able to communicate and collaborate with them. The managerial side validated the responses in a way that a flexible and target-oriented approach was adopted for employees. They organized stress management activities and ensured connections through regular employee connect and communication by Learning and Development department. Additionally, COVID-19 advisories and guidelines were followed while engaging with employees. The work–life balance shaken due to remote work was managed with responsive humanistic management practices that had the enduring effect of garnering employee engagement levels with the organization.

Citation

Nasreen, A. and Tomar, S. (2024), "Humanizing Practices for People Management: A Case Study From COVID-19", Misra, R.K., Purankar, S.A., Goel, D., Kapoor, S. and Sharma, R.B. (Ed.) Resilient Businesses for Sustainability (Advanced Series in Management, Vol. 34B), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 21-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1877-63612024000034B003