HR in the age of COVID-19 and the Great Resignation

How employers (and employees) should be thinking about the present realities and future demands of the modern workforce.

Unprecedented. That’s the way we’ve come to describe our current existence. To be fair, there’s plenty of historic precedence for pandemics, wide-spread communicable illness, and a drastically impacted labor market. What we haven’t seen before is the modern 24/7/365 workforce in the wake of global tragedy and omnipresent uncertainty. And, true to most scenarios in which our own human mortality is brought into clear view, people are questioning, well - everything.

On top of the usual (if not heightened) worries of enough money, access to food, security of shelter, and general well-being, people across the globe are wrestling with the big existential questions of why am I here, what am I doing, and should I keep doing it? Except, unlike a stereotypical Eat-Pray-Love-esque midlife reevaluation, they’re not doing their soul searching in a sabbatical vacuum. The lines of work and home have blurred along with the lines of individual freedoms and social responsibilities. The added hassle of a mask to the required workwear has laxed previously business-standard shirts and ties to polos and khakis or (gasp!) jeans. Appearances of coworkers’ children and ‘fur babies’ that were previously relegated to company picnics and annual holiday greeting cards are now commonplace in budget review meetings and daily team huddles.

In short – life got weird. And it doesn’t seem to be returning to “normal” anytime soon. So that leaves us with adapting to the “new normal” – and employers and employees are navigating these massive changes in tandem. Employees are being yanked out of the workforce at any given point for an undetermined amount of time to address the health of themselves or a dependent, uncertain of what compensation or job security is afforded to them. Employers are subject to new and changing regulations, incredible logistics challenges, and unpredictable staffing complications. As true an adage as ever, the only constant is change.

While every job, every company, and every human are impacted differently by the state of the world, the one commonality we share is the need for adaptability. Yesterday’s hunt for hand sanitizer is today’s stockpiling of N95s and tomorrow’s microchip shortage. Employers should be planning for pivoting service models, dwindling supply chains, and alternate non-standard work hours. Employees should be priming for the next wave of change, monitoring industry trends and drawing clear boundaries for their situational requirements. Now, more than ever, the definition of what ‘work’ looks like and feels like is being rewritten.

In a world of unprecedented unpredictability, the best we can do is to weather the storm and adapt together (while being 6feet+ apart).

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