Covid Effect On Performance

Name: Sajjad Khan
Class: MHRM final

Course: Performance Management
Course no: 603
Assignment: Performance Effected at
workplace during the phase of Covid19
Submitted to: Sir Shoaib
Introduction of Topic:
COVID-19’s impacts on workers and workplaces across the globe have
been dramatic.
COVID-19 is both a global health crisis and an international economic

threat. The worldwide lockdown of businesses and industries that were
implemented and mandated to curb the spread of the virus generated a
wide array of unique and fundamental challenges for both employees
and employers across the globe. At the individual level, populations of
shutdown affected employees were turned overnight into (a) “work
from home” employees, (b) “essential” or “life-sustaining” workers
(e.g., emergency room medical personnel and supermarket staff), or (c)
furloughed or laid-off employees seeking the nation-specific equivalent
of unemployment benefits.
Among the present unknowns, it is possible that an effective vaccine or

therapeutic treatment becomes available quickly enough to limit the
direct impacts of COVID-19 to less than a year. We present here, we
focus on the relevance of COVID-19-related risks and changes for
workers, workplaces, and work practices – and do not differentiate
between the direct health risks associated with COVID-19 and the
economic fallout. To organize our consideraton of the multiple ways in
which the current pandemic is impacting the workplace, this review
consists of three main sections: (1) emergent changes in work practices
that have been necessary in response to the pandemic, including
mandatory working from home, often in virtual settings, on
unprecedented scales; (2) economic and social-psychological impacts
that are visible in the wake of COVID-19, including unemployment,
mental illness.
Impact on workplace:
Emergent Changes in Work Practices
While COVID-19 abruptly upended normal work routines, it also caused
an acceleration of trends that were already underway involving the
migration of work to online or virtual environments. A key difference
when considering research on practices such as Work from Home
(WFH) prior to the pandemic, though, is that WFH was previously often
responsive to employee preferences but COVID-19 forced many into
Mandatory Work From Home (MWFH).
Work from Home (WFH)

Departments showed that approximately one-half of the companies
had more than 80% of their employees working from home during early
stages of the COVID-19 pandemic – and estimated substantial long-
term increases for remote work after the pandemic. The need for
millions of workers to WFH in response to COVID-19 has accelerated
recent remote work trends facilitated by the rise of connectivity and
communication technologies. While “remote work” is a broader
category since it can include Work From Anywhere (i.e., not necessarily
home), we do know that some – such as professionals who need to
perform complex tasks that require little interaction with peers –
actually prefer and are more productive if they WFH (Allen, Cho, &
Meier, 2014). Yet as large numbers of workers are forced to work from
home, many face challenges due to such fundamental issues as not
having space in one's home to attend to work. Employees who live with
others also face a larger set of challenges than those who live alone
since they need to navigate others' space as well (see later section on
Family Status).
Employees often find it challenging to maintain boundaries

between work and non-work (Ramarajan & Reid, 2013). The forced
confinement of workers during the COVID 19-pandemic has further
complicated this issue. While WFH might sound appealing if it offers a
safe harbor, the absence of separation between one’s work and home –
and the lack of commutes to provide a transition between the two
domains – can become a burden too.
The challenges that gig workers are known to face will sound familiar to
those required to WFH since they include getting and staying organized;
managing the heightened emotions associated with such work; figuring
out and maintaining an identity so that those emotions do not disrupt
the productivity upon which their survival depends; coping with
loneliness while also seeking out and maintaining functional
relationships that support the work; and, establishing some semblance
of a longer-term career (Ashford et al., 2018).
As with challenges, “best practices” for WFH can also benefit from what
we know has been helpful for gig workers (since they also typically do
not work in traditional office settings). Such practices include actions to
generate and maintain connections; actions to focus and inspire their
work; explicit routines that enable the work and provide boundaries
between work and home; and, both a place where the work is
performed as well as an underlying purpose for the work that enables
and inspires productivity as circumstances become challenging.
Future research is also needed that examines patterns in individual

cognition – cognitive and learning agility, general proactivity, emotional
resilience, and relational skill to better understand and enable
individuals to not only survive in this new world of work, but also to
thrive (Ashford et al., 2018).
Given the likelihood that COVID-19 will accelerate trends towards WFH
past the immediate impacts of the pandemic (Gartner, 2020), it is clear
that the variable ways in which people work outside of traditional
workplace settings will warrant growing amounts of attention for both
research and practice.
Impact on Individual Productivity
Independent from challenges that individuals can face when WFH, it is

also notable that (a) the reluctance of many employers to adopt WFH
before COVID-19 stemmed from a perceived lack of control that
employers would have over employees who were out-of-sight and –
reach and (b) there is ample reason to expect that new modes of
surveillance will accompany various WFH arrangements. Indeed, even
before COVID-19, employers were adopting and developing
technologies to monitor employees’. Although managing-by-walking-
around is not feasible when people are working remotely, the rapidly
expanded usage of videoconferencing has allowed for virtual sight-
lines. Yet these virtual sight-lines are fraught with a risk: they can
increase perceived stress through continuous monitoring and feelings
of privacy invasion.
Individual family status (e.g., living alone; with others; with young
children) appears likely to disparately affect how COVID-19 impacts
individuals’ life and work. For example, how will households with one
or two working parents typically be affected by requirements to work
from home, especially if they are responsible for one or more school-
age children.
In addition to the consequences of unemployment for individuals, there
are negative spillover effects for those who remain employed. Prior
research shows that when firms reduce overall staffing levels, there
tends to be correspondingly lower levels of organizational
commitment, job involvement, and greater stress among survivors.
Recommendations and Conclusion:
Among the many current unknowns, we do not yet know how badly the
global economy will be affected and how quickly it will recover. We also
do not yet know if and when there will be a vaccine or effective
medicine available nor how widely and quickly it will be distributed.
Notwithstanding the unknowns, it is obvious that COVID-19 will be

recognized for changing the way we work in fundamental ways. For
example, COVID-19 abruptly accelerated the speed of changes
associated with working outside of co-located offices. Virtual work
practices are likely to spread as organizations realize the cost-savings
from structuring labor with fewer full-time employees and more
contractors connected technologically and perhaps with less office
space in light of the health risks known to be associated with
conventional open-plan offices. The challenges for individuals working
in this manner are clear: more of us will need to learn to work in ways
far different than how people did in previous generations. In this
respect, COVID-19 makes clear how vulnerable we are as employees
and employers. As many businesses around the world will be
restructured or disappear due to the pandemic, workers will be
retrained or laid-off and the economic, social-psychological, and health
costs of these actions are likely to be immense. Indeed, the impacts of
the pandemic will affect some groups of workers more strongly than
others, for example, based on their age, race and ethnicity, gender, or
personality.
An understanding of how these abruptly emergent changes unfold is

important for practitioners who are charting paths forward to address
(e.g., with new interventions) the needs of vulnerable categories of
employees. For instance, workers living alone may have very different
virtual working needs and routines than employees living with family
members. Also, more authoritarian or bossy leaders may face different
challenges in motivating their workers in virtual environments than
more participative and empathic team leaders, and thus have different
training and development needs. Finally, in dealing with remote
working populations, HR professionals must develop new performance
management and appraisal systems while occupational health staff
should be trained to recognize mental health issues in remote working
populations – and be able to offer online advice and therapy.
To consider the long-term effects, organizational researchers should

perhaps also delve deeper into our history to learn about how
epidemics and pandemics have been handled in the past. As Sir
Winston Churchill once said: “The longer you can look back, the further
you can look forward.” There are some parallels between the current
crisis and previous threats such as WWII, the 9/11/2001 attacks, and
the 2008 financial crisis. Yet COVID-19 is also unique since it is primarily
a global health threat and thus requires a different set of adaptive
responses (e.g., physical distancing instead of coming together). We
therefore need theory development on how different kinds of global
threats and crises shape workplaces in varied ways. We do know that
infectious diseases have been a common aspect of human evolution
and have shaped our psychology, behavior, and culture in surprising but
predictable ways. As we now live and work in globally interdependent
communities, infectious disease threats such as COVID-19 need to be
recognized as part of the workspace. To continue to reap the benefits
from global cooperation, we must find smarter and safer ways of
working together.

Covid Effect On Performance

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Covid Effect On Performance

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Covid Effect On Performance

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Name: Sajjad Khan

Class: MHRM final

COVID-19 is both a global health crisis and an international economic

Among the present unknowns, it is possible that an effective vaccine or

Work from Home (WFH)

Employees often find it challenging to maintain boundaries

Future research is also needed that examines patterns in individual

Independent from challenges that individuals can face when WFH, it is

Recommendations and Conclusion:

Notwithstanding the unknowns, it is obvious that COVID-19 will be

An understanding of how these abruptly emergent changes unfold is

To consider the long-term effects, organizational researchers should

You might also like