HR Practices to maintain Employee Commitment during the Health Crisis in Bahrain. The Example of Ministry of Education Employees

Contents

Thesis paper

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Introduction

Outline of Research:

Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework

1.1 Health Crises Management
1.2 Mobilized Theory of Commitment
1.3 HR practices
1.3.1 Reconnecting Employees
1.3.2 Managing Social Distancing
1.3.3 Infrastructure
1.3.4 Reducing communication gap
1.3.5 Controlling Cyberattacks
1.3.6 Untrained employee

Chapter 2: Methodology
2.1 Restatement of Purpose
2.2 Research Design
2.3 Data Collection
2.4 Sampling Method
2.5 Data Analysis Technique

Chapter 3: Finding and Discussions
3.1.1 Background Data
3.2 Thematic Framework
3.2.1 Creating and Organizing Codes into Themes
3.2.2 Reviewing and defining names to themes

Chapter 5: References

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In the beginning I would like to thank my family for their exceptional support, aid, and understanding during my master’s degree and throughout my life and especially my mother,Mrs.Hayat Awad Wadi, for her continuous support throughout my life and her special support during the period of my studies and preparation for this scientific research. In addition, It is an absolute pleasure to display my profound feeling of thankfulness and appreciation to my instructor, philosopher, and leader,Professor. Khaled Saboune, for all his support, worthy comment, guidance, and supervision through this pleasant journey. I would also like to thankDr. Mohammed Amin, the Director of the MPM Program, for his essential support of my Master's studies.

Moreover, Unique expressions of admiration and appreciation are extended toHis Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Prime Minister for excellent supervision and encouragement for continuous support for academic and professional education, which will inevitably make Bahraini human capital successful in all fields. Furthermore, I owe a deep spirit of honor to the source of my inspirationDr. Muhammad Salih Al-Ansari, for his encouragement and support throughout my studies during my bachelor's degree and when I have cautioned my master’s degree.

In the end, I am incredibly appreciative toall institutions and personalitieswho engaged in this research for all the knowledge, information, and theories throughout thefocus gathering sittings and discussionsthat aided in executing this research possible. Without their participation, I would not have been able to accomplish this research. And allMy MPM collegesfor their encouragements and support.

Thank you very much, everyone!

Abstract

The research study investigates today’s working experience of employees, their working conditions after the health crises initiated globally and investigate further how these working situations are impacting the employee’s commitment. The qualitative research design and methodology in the research study seek to provide deeper insight into the commitment issues faced by employees and how they manage to overcome or reflect on their assigned task. The data was collected from the ministry of education employees and supervisors and analyzed their experience through thematic analysis. The analysis concludes that HR has introduced significant health crisis management practices in the ministry of education. These implemented practices include SOPs, work from home, telecommunication, and reduction in staff, which have significantly impacted employee performance and commitment. Nature and change in working conditions have changed due to the acceptance of online gadgets.

Keywords: COVID-19, Commitment level, Ministry of education, HR practices

Abstrait

L’étude de recherche examine l’expérience professionnelle actuelle des employés, leurs conditions de travail après les crises sanitaires déclenchées à l’échelle mondiale, et étudie plus en détail l’impact de ces situations de travail sur l’engagement des employés. La conception et la méthodologie de la recherche qualitative dans l'étude de recherche visent à fournir un aperçu plus approfondi des problèmes d'engagement rencontrés par les employés et de la façon dont ils parviennent à surmonter ou à réfléchir à la tâche qui leur est assignée. Les données ont été collectées auprès des employés et des superviseurs du ministère de l'Éducation et ont analysé leur expérience à travers une analyse thématique. Le résultat de l'analyse conclut que les RH ont introduit des pratiques majeures de gestion des crises sanitaires au sein du ministère de l'Éducation. Ces pratiques mises en œuvre comprennent les SOP, le travail à domicile, les télécommunications et la réduction du personnel ont eu un impact significatif sur le rendement et l'engagement des employés. La nature et l'évolution des conditions de travail ont changé en raison de l'acceptation des gadgets en ligne.

Mots clés: COVID-19, niveau d'engagement, ministère de l'éducation, pratiques RH

List of Abbreviations:

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

List of Figures

Figure 1: Theoretical framework of research 11

Figure 2: Hierarchical chart of all themes and subthemes using NVivo 26

Figure 3: Sentiments analysis on Health crises management by HR 27

Figure 4: HR influence the leadership of supervisors to affect employees' work commitment 28

Figure 5: A linear approach to Research Question in Qualitative Research 30

List of Tables:

Table 1: Conceptually Identifying the Employee commitment 16

Table 2: Participants Background Information 25

Table 3: Sources and references of the impact of COVID 19 on employees 29

Introduction

The research study aims to presents today’s working experience of employees, their working conditions after the health crises initiated globally, and to further investigate how these working situations are impacting the employee’s commitment. The qualitative research design and methodology in the research study seek to provide deeper insight into the commitment issues faced by employees and how they manage to overcome or reflect on their assigned task.

Nature and the working condition has changed in recent decades whereas, it is observed that organizations significantly turn around towards the acceptance of current working condition due to significant health pandemic raised globally (Usher, Bhullar, & Jackson, 2020; Kaushik, & Guleria, 2020). These working conditions are continuously impacting the performance of employees (Novitasari, Sasono, & Asbari, 2020; Kaushik, & Guleria, 2020). During the Covid-19 pandemic, organizations expect employees to be autonomous and self-governing in their daily routine, which needs to acquire great skill sets and confidence in their abilities. These autonomies of employees are supported through modern information technology and flexibility provided for self-governing.

When the COVID-19 pandemic took a severe impact globally, the lockdowns were declared (Bayuni, 2020); region to region or country to countries, organizations, start facing issues regarding working conditions. Employees need to disconnect physically, maintain social distancing in the organization. The biggest challenge for HR is to keep the employees committed to their work and perform excellently without delaying the organizational goals. Apart from working conditions issues, there were technical issues that need to be faced. Organizations cant impact the organic properties of the virus. However, HR needs to measure employee contact by maintaining the social distancing in the organization. The social distancing arises the need for a “work from home (WFH)” facility (Raut, 2020) that was not ever being implemented by various organizations. Under this WFH facility, the employee can perform his organization duties from their home through the massive use of a digital platform (Kaushik, & Guleria, 2020; Spurk, & Straub, 2020). Whereas, employees were not technical to use these gadgets, whereas some employees do not have a digital platform in their home. Various questions were raised due to the WFH facility or maintaining social distancing in the organization that has to be catered by the HR department. The role of HR is to rethink, redesign, and think out of the box for bringing forth the new practice for keeping the employees committed to their work, perform well, and running their businesses. The challenge face by HR is to connect people to get back to work by minimizing the technical challenges faced by employees. Various homes do not have quite a workplace or office environment. So, connecting employees either via phone call or other gadgets are necessary to keep the work going. In connection to the COVID-19 situation in the organization, this research study focused on the HR practices that were redesign to tackle the challenges faced during COVID-19 lockdowns, strategies, or SOPs adopted by the organization to keep employees motivated to come to work or being committed to task assigned to them.

The research study contains several aspects on knowing the level of commitment during the critical situation of a pandemic; the second aspect is related to HR redesigning its working condition and intensity of flexibility awarded to employees; the third aspect is related to e-training and e-leadership, whereas the fourth aspect is related to the work-life balance. Therefore, we have developed one research question that caters to several aspects:

Research Question:How do HR practices influence employees' work commitment in the context of a significant health crisis?

The research study will narrate the life experiences of employees. In this paper, employee's responses towards the HR practices' influence on the changing working conditions of the organization after the COVID-19 pandemic are narrated from the perspective of organizational commitment theory. The semi-structured questionnaire was used to conduct interviews with the Ministry of Education employees of Bahrain.

In this context, thesub research questions(identified from the main research question) are as follows:

- Dose the proper implementation of Health Crises Management by HR affect the employees' work commitment?
- Which specific HR practice affects most employees' work commitment during a significant health crisis?
- Does HR influence supervisors' leadership to affect employees' work commitment during a significant health crisis?

The research study contains several objectives:

- The first objective is knowing the impact of the implication of health crisis management by HR influence the level of commitment during the critical situation of a pandemic.
- The second objective is for HR to redesign its working condition and have more flexibility awarded to employees.
- The third objective is related to HR communicating with various departments in the organization to cope with health pandemics.
- The fourth objective is related to the HR department influencing supervisors' leadership to impact employees' work commitment during a significant health crisis.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak globally, companies have taken steps for evaluating the HR practices and come up with those practices that they were never taught to implement. For instance, some companies freeze new hiring, stop salary increments and bonuses, layout increase, whereas others have introduced WFH facility, increase health insurance, provide financial assistance, etc. This has motivated them to diagnose the challenges/issues faced by employees and what necessary steps have been introduced by these organizations to keep their employees committed and motivated. Work up is needed on maintaining a suitable balance between professional and personal life by following the SOPs initiated globally, include social distancing, etc. The need for social distancing has raised the need to work from home to keep alive the working spirit of employees. Various organizations have never implemented these working conditions, and employees are unfamiliar, un-trained, and resourceless for adopting work-from-home facilities. After the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations have changed their functions and business activities, whereas various departments planned to run their activities through mobile or other gadgets (Wolor, Dalimunthe, Febrilia, & Martono, 2020). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic held on both the private and public sectors, but due to time and resource constraints, the research will be limited to the public sector only due to more formal HR practices. The situation of COVID-19 has a very adverse effect on the organizations, countries, and economies that need to study as it has a very significant impact on the personal and professional lives of individuals.

The research study aims to identify the issues and challenges faced by employees due to COVID-19 health crises. It will also study the impact of health crises on employee performance and the commitment of employees. The aim is to diagnose the challenges that were faced by employees that impact their work-life balance. The study's objective is to determine the challenges faced by HR in the public sector of Bahrain and how HR has tweaked its strategy. It will identify the redesigning and restructuring of working conditions, strategy/SOPs adopted by HR to keep employees motivated and perform well.

The assumptions of the research study are:

-The employee will answer the research questions with honesty.

-The inclusion criteria of the sample unit are apposite and assure that sample units have experienced the phenomena of the study.

-The number of participants included in the research study is enough to conclude the research questions.

Qualitative research presents difficulty in connection to verification. It presents a "limited amount of generalizability in finding."

Due to time and resource constraints, the study was collected through interviews in a single public administration. Another limitation is that employees being interviewed are translating on their biases and prejudices. The limitation is replicating the research study since this research study is a study of a unique group in a unique situation.

Outline of Research:

The research study will follow the following outline.

Introduction(Brief overview of the research study, Research problem, the need for the study, the aim of the study, assumption, and limitations of the study)

1.Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework.
-Health Crises Management
-Mobilized theory: Three-component of organizational commitment.
-The chosen HR tool or practice.

2. Chapter 2: Methodology

3 Chapter 3: Finding and Discussion

4 Chapter 4: Conclusion and Further Implications

5 References

Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework

In this chapter, the Researcher has discussed different journals, articles, reports, newspapers, and electronic publications divided into three broader perspectives to get detailed insights into the research topic.

-Health Crises Management

-Mobilized theory: Three-component of organizational commitment.

-The chosen HR tool or practice.

These broader perspectives have been identified based on sub-research questions. For developing better insights about the topic, we integrate the theoretical framework in the literature review. The following developed theoretical frame is theorized based on beliefs that HR practices phenomena are related to employee commitment during a pandemic.

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Figure 1: Theoretical framework of research

Initially identified as coronavirus, the COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout the world. The pandemic led various regions or countries into isolation that drastically impact the economies of countries (Bayuni, 2020; Kaushik & Guleria, 2020; Wolor, Dalimunthe, Febrilia, & Martono, 2020). The situation has changed the working conditions of the organization and forced them to adopt gadgets to keep themselves productive, committed, and maintain performance (Fachriansyah,2020). In this modern era, where technological advancement brings easy to employees working conditions has also uplifted various challenges for employees regarding sustained work commitment and employee productivity.

Organizations must make their employee committed to organizational goals and overcome all odds they face for being committed (Chen & Francesco, 2003). Therefore, it intends to be necessary for organizations to learn how to value committed employees because they tend to function favorably compared to other non-committed employees (Meyer & Allen, 1991; Meyer, 2014). It is universally proven that highly committed employees are more energetic and achieve the deliverables within time. According to Mayer and Allen's theory of organizational commitment, it reflected three distinctive components of employee commitment, include affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment. The affective commitment represents the emotional attachment of an employee to an organization (Bambacas, & Bordia, 2009; Hilaire & Robertie, 2018); continuance commitment represents that employees feel that staying with the organization is better and less costly compared to leaving (Haghighat, Ousat, & Mirzazadeh, 2010); whereas normative commitment represents that leaving the organization has disastrous consequences(Khattaki, & Sethi, 2012; Bambacas, & Bordia, 2009). During the circumstances of COVID-19 situation globally, when employees are being fired due to severe lockdown in countries. Employee focus was to stick with the organizations by showing commitment towards their job roles. Employees were satisfied with their working conditions before the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas the COVID-19 pandemic brings an adverse effect on the working condition of employees. Similarly, the qualitative research study conducted on the flight industry concludes that pilots and crew were almost satisfied with their working conditions and better wages, whereas flight attendants were afraid of losing their job after the COVID-19 pandemic (Singh, p.81, 2020).

Marylene Gagne, in the Oxford Handbook of work engagement, motivation, and self-determination, talks about the different forms of commitment in the workforce and indicates that commitment has motivational properties by highlighting the three-component model of commitment. It talks about overarching forms of motivation, includes intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is motivating oneself for their interest, whereas Extrinsic motivation is doing the task for instrumental reasons (Deci & Ryan, 2012; Sansone & Harackiewicz, 2000). However, extrinsic motivation is dominant in an organizational context (Manganelli, Thibault-Landry, Forest, & Carpentier, 2018). During the pandemic, employees need to apply intrinsic motivation to remain committed to organizational goals and perform well. Whereas extrinsic motivation is applied by organizations, providing them e-training regarding gadgets or resource utilization that need to use during lockdown or work from home facility.

1.1 Health Crises Management

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed employees to work from home globally. Nations imposed severe lockdowns to control the coronavirus (Usher, Bhullar, & Jackson, 2020; Filimonau, Derqui, & Matute, 2020) that impact the health of the human body. Shop, offices, transportation, educational institutes, and all other essential items needed daily are closed to control the spread of the virus (Bayuni, 2020; Raut, 2020; Spurk, & Straub, 2020). Under this scenario, employees were asked to stay at home and connect through various gadgets, includes phones, video conferencing, email, etc. (Kramer, & Kramer, 2020; Gorlick, 2020). There was a continued decline in working hours (Bick, Blandin, & Mertens, 2020) and flexible hours rendered to employees (Spurk, & Straub, 2020). The situation creat a communication gap within the organization (Bayuni, 2020; Novitasari, Sasono, & Asbari, 2020), clients were avoided, and no face-to-face interactions (Usher, Bhullar, & Jackson, 2020; Filimonau, Derqui, & Matute, 2020). In this situation, even a passionate employee suffers and unable to perform well. Productivity and performance of employees were affected due to which organizations start missing their targets. Employee commitment leads to poor results (Raut, 2020). All that chaos leads to the poor performance of employees.

The situation of COVID-19 has slowed the economy (Bayuni, 2020). Due to this, the other impact of COVID-19 is that employees start losing their jobs (Filimonau, Derqui, & Matute, 2020; Bayuni, 2020; Gorlick, 2020). Companies stop making profits. New ventures were shut down before reaching the breakeven point (Ozili, & Arun, 2020). People become insure about their job. Many of them lose their jobs. There were no leadership, teamwork, and good workplace to work in. Various companies reduce the extra allowances, cut salaries and commissions of employees that create demotivation and lack of commitment among employees (Gautam, & Hens, 2020). The situation worsened, and there is no sign of coming out from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the International labor organization, the world of work is entirely affected by the global pandemic of the coronavirus. The prolonged impact of COVID-19 has disrupted the people's health, social lifestyle, and economies of nations (Ozili, & Arun, 2020; Gautam, & Hens, 2020; Gorlick, 2020). This led to a massive decrement in the labor income, and daily wagers could not find the job due to which fiscal stimulus gap created that increases the inequality between richer and poorer countries (Dang, Huynh, & Nguyen, 2020).

People were frustrated, and occupational stress was developed in the organizations. Prasad and Vaidya (2020) were conducted a study, "Association among COVID-19 parameters, occupational stress and employee performance, in which he states that remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic has put forward visible occupational stress among employees. The study undertakes five parameters, such as workplace isolation, lack of peer advice, communication gap, family distractions, and overloaded role, to empirically validate the impact of occupational stress on job performance. Various scholars stated that an employee faces occupational stress when the available resources are less than the desired and demand of the job (Rehman, Shahnawaz, Khan, Kharshiing, Khursheed, Gupta, & Uniyal, 2020; Fachriansyah, 2020; Bayuni, 2020), whereas other contributions of researchers on occupational stress recognized that social change, lifestyle change and cultural change on the working environment (Kaushik & Guleria, 2020; Wolor, Dalimunthe, Febrilia, & Martono, 2020; Kramer, & Kramer, 2020), also disrupt the balancing life of the employee (Novitasari, Sasono, & Asbari, 2020). However, the intensity of stress differs from individual to individual as the withholding capacity varies from one individual to another (Kramer, & Kramer, 2020).

To keep business running during the COVID-19 pandemic, the employee was pushed to work from home through remote connections (Fachriansyah, 2020; Gautam, & Hens, 2020). This brings positive change to various organizations. It supports the organization in identifying its crucial personnel and employee productivity while maintaining a work-life balance (Kossek & Lee, 2020). Neither less, it is not about balancing life. It is proactively facing the challenges, work positively, and bring productivity to the assigned task (Kaushik & Guleria, 2020; Kossek, & Lee, 2020). Work from home has various pros and cons. Some are managing it efficiently while others are facing a server downturn in their job responsibility. Organizations adapts new working structures to accommodate the employees through the physical, financial, and technical resource.

1.2 Mobilized Theory of Commitment

Literature has given considerable attention to organizational commitment over the past decades (Benkhoff, 1997; Mathieu & Zajac, 1990) and demonstrated several working and non-working employee behaviors (Hackett, Bycio, & Hausdorf, 1994). There are various definitions and concepts regarding employee commitment proposed by different scholars of different countries. One famous "Three-component model of employee commitment" was proposed by John Meyer and Natalie Allen (1991), who explain that organizational commitment is a psychological state. The three components of commitment are normative commitment, affective commitment, and continuous commitment. The Normative commitment refers to the emotional part of employees, their feeling of obligation to stay in the organization. These feelings enhance from early socialization with peers and colleagues in the organization and extend to family and cultural gathering based, but undoubtedly stimulated by the organization (Allen & Meyer, 1996). Continuous commitment is related to the cost of an employee leaving the organization. The concept is taken from the side bets theory of Becker (1960). Becker mentioned commitment as "consistent or continuous activities." When employees are not performing a consistent line of activities, it means they are losing their commitment towards assigned tasks, jobs, and organization holistically (Bambacas, & Bordia, 2009). The last component is affective commitment. An affective commitment of the employees is the emotional attachment towards the organizational values. It indicates how many employees like the organization (Mathieu & Zajac. 1990).

Various scholars introduced different definitions and concepts on employee commitment and its three components.

Some of the concepts are highlighted below in Table 1:

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Table 1: Conceptually Identifying the Employee commitment

Employee performance is the outcome of employee commitment, motivation, and emotional connection with the organization (Karishna & Chalofsky, 2001). It is not the same as employee satisfaction because a satisfied employee does not necessarily yield a greater output to the company and work for its profitability; however, satisfied employees will be doing their part of the job happily (Harter, Frank, & Theodore, 2002). The extent of the commitment of employees varies from individual to individual, organization to organization, and country to country. The intensity of commitment reflects the passion and engagement of the employee towards his job. This emotional commitment to engaged employees cares about the job and his work. The employee is considered as a highly committed employee if he is dedicatedly enrolled in his tasks and performing his deliverable to the highest level of satisfaction for the employer and the organization holistically (Tsui & Farh, 2010). The issues of employee commitment rise due to various changes occurring globally. This raises the need for employee development professionally while catering to them to be fully committed to cater to the changing trend of the industry.

Literature has suggested that it is essential for the organization to have committed employees because they tend to perform proactively comparative to the non-committed employee (Allen, & Meyer, 1996); Bambacas, & Bordia, 2009; Chen, & Francesco, 2003). Various scholars suggested that committed employees are motivated to perform well (Benkhoff, 1997; Chen & Francesco, 2003). In this meaning, the function of HR is to promote autonomous regulation in the employee by providing them with an appropriate work environment (job design, social relationship, and compensation) in a way that increases their intrinsic satisfaction (Greguras & Diefendorff, 2009; Sansone & Harackiewicz 2000). The three-component theory of organizational commitment reflects that employee shows commitment and motivation to perform well when the organization provides an appropriate working environment (Greguras, & Diefendorff, 2009; Krajcsak, 2019). The situation of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the organizational environment (Wolor, Dalimunthe, Febrilia, & Martono, 2020) and forced the committed employee to show his level of commitment professionally by learning new gadgets. It becomes more difficult due to the unavailability of resources during the work from the home facility (Fachriansyah, 2020), the level of commitment and performance of the employees are adversely affected (Filimonau, Derqui, & Matute, 2020). Due to the unavailability of proper resources in employees' home and the shutting of shops or market, has suffered the employee's motivation and performance. Therefore, there is a need for understanding the expectation of employees on maintaining the work-life balance (Wolor, Dalimunthe, Febrilia, & Martono, 2020). HR needs to re-design the organizational working condition for facilitating the employees.

1.3 HR practices

The current trend of COVID-19 has brought various challenges for employees and HR personnel. The COVID-19 challenge has forced HR to bring innovative and proactive strategies for employees to keep them committed and motivated. It is crucial for HR to re-think and re-design the working conditions to keep the operation and business activities running.

The challenges faced by HR are as follows:

1.3.1 Reconnecting Employees

The lockdown was declared in Bahrain, and people were forced to maintain the social distancing. The main challenge for HR is to re-connect employees while staying at home. There were various technical challenges for re-connecting the employees online. Not all house possesses an office or quiet workplace to connect for hours with other colleagues. Many employees do not have sophisticated headsets, video cameras, network connections, and other accessories to connect (Back, Tulsky, & Arnold, 2020). Employees were unaware or untrained to connect.

On the other hand, some employees were unwilling to learn or find a way out to learn the gadgets. They spent time with families during working hours while given several excuses for not having an appropriate way out (Gorlick, 2020). To overcome these challenges, HR has to deploy positive psychology to keep employees motivated and connected. HR has to bring a virtual workplace for employees to achieve their tasks.

1.3.2 Managing Social Distancing

The home-based team presents various challenges for HR., whereas we cannot deny the benefits of a home-based team, include a reduction in overhead cost, saving of energy resource, and transportation cost. Adam Grant'sGrant's Nick bloom experiments indicated that if organization allow the employee working in a call center to work from home, the productivity will increase to 13 percent because employees will get flexibility during working hour, they will get time to relax, and free from the feeling of being watched all the time. Scholars contribute that working from home improves employee morale and productivity. However, the challenging part of work from home is to keep connected with others without any disruption from connectivity or family and stay focused on the work while residing at home.

1.3.3 Infrastructure

Another challenge for HR is to provide well-equipped resources to employees to perform well in remote working practices. Some organizations provide extra allowances to set up a home office to perform the work without any interruption. The allowance covers the god network connection, availability of laptop/desktop PC, and other necessary gadgets.

1.3.4 Reducing communication gap

The most significant challenge encountered by HR is to reduce the communication gap. Work from the home facility is settled to reduce the communication gap during the lockdown, whereas effective communication is required for ensuring that employees log in to PCs during working hours and performing their duties effectively (. Spontaneous collaboration is needed between management and employee to craft a remote work strategy and policy. Various organizations facilitate their employees by offering them meeting tools, video conferencing applications, and data sharing tools. The sense of isolation will be reduced, and the supervisor may contact their employee anytime with the help of these tools without any hazardous physical contact.

1.3.5 Controlling Cyberattacks

Cyber attacksare the online assault done by cybercriminals with a motive to capture information and breach confidentiality. These attacks steal confidential data on other computers. Not every computer we use in our home/office is well secure with licensed software and anti-virus software. In the event of COVID-19, when employees had an unsecured network at their home, the chances of cyberattacks increases. Various organization confidential data can be easily accessed by breaching network security. The other concern for HR is to secure data confidentiality. Some big giant firms purchase their collaborative software for video conferencing, data, and screen sharing to safeguard cyberattacks. In comparison, others rely on unsecured software for sharing of information and data.

1.3.6 Untrained employee

Another challenge HR face is maintaining normalcy by providing training to untrained employees. Untrain employees are those employees who are unable to use collaborative software for video conferencing, data sharing, and connecting online during work from home (Wolor, Dalimunthe, Febrilia, & Martono, 2020). Employees carve for routine work. Therefore, it is crucial for HR to lay the grounds through training for the employees working from home. It flowed up by aligning task priorities and efficient time management. Even management need to obtain continuous follow-up from employees to check how employees are dealing with transitioning to work from home. It is difficult for HR to make feel they are being watched and heard. On the other end, it is the best time to give recognition and express gratitude.

One of the enormous impacts on the COVID-19 pandemic is that employees work from remote places, and the trend has developed in many countries. Various Scholars accept that remote working increases performance and productivity. However, the role of HR does not finish; it starts from the facility of remote working to train every employee to remain committed and perform well. The chosen role of HR has influenced the supervisors to motivate their subordinates. In various organizations, HR personnel has been given the authority to supervisors to manage their employees. Supervisors have had to draw a decision on identifying their key employees and reduce the number of employees for maintaining the social distancing and moved into the digital space of work. Supervisors need to priorities the work, identify the best way of communication with employees, and maintaining their team's commitment and motivation. Ernst & Young has surveyed 500 board members and Chief executives (CEOs) of different industries and concluded that only 20 percent believed they were ready to respond to the adverse risk of the COVID-19 pandemic (EY, 2020). On the other side, several industries and small enterprises were not able to identify the adverse effect at the initial stages, and resources were not sufficient enough to manage the risk.

A massive number of employees were facing stress due to health risks and working from home. Supervisors were, for the first time were managing the remote team. This brings a big challenge for the supervisors leading a remote team who are untrained and available at a different distance from the necessary official documents. In 2018, RW3 surveyed the multi-national enterprise's employees. The sample size of 1620, obtained from 90 countries, gathered data on virtual teams. Maximum respondents agreed on the importance of a global virtual team presence in the organization for job success. In contrast, only 20 percent of employees received official training on the managing work of distributed teams globally, and 15 percent of leaders marked themselves as "very effective" virtual team leaders (RW3, 2018). The other research conducted in Europe (Prochazka et al., 2020) has obtained data of sample size 726 employees from four European countries (Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, and Slovakia) researched about changes in workload, income, social distancing, WFH, organizational commitment, and employee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.