Cornering COVID-19

COVID-19 has become a catalyst for one of the biggest workplace transformations we could ever see in our lifetime. It has significantly been changing the way we work, shop, exercise, learn, communicate, and surely, where we work. It transformed remote working landscape and the new challenges for HR, Recruitment are emerging fast. My views on COVID-19 impact on recruitment and society and needed future alignments to sustain for HR and recruitment in general. At the same time, we will see how software development has evolved rapidly from desktop to remote working globally via SaaS-based products.

COVID-19 Impacts on Recruitment & HR Practices

The public is gradually edging towards restricting themselves to their homes and this brings trouble for businesses across all sectors. Employment rates are expected to decline in the coming months. Some organisations are halting their recruitment process until there is some betterment. Employers confidence in the economy declined by 22% points between February and March 2020. Consequently, massive layoffs and reduction in working hours across all industries like retail and hospitality, are being witnessed. A lot of companies have put their recruitment on hold along with cutting costs on employee rewards and benefits. Instead of panic or chalk recruitment up as failed ventures, recruiters should think of ways to make sure that their prospective employees remain safe from the Covid-19 threat.

Remote Software Development

COVID-19 is affecting tech industries, causing them to arbitrarily gyrate in impulsive ways, directly impacting the IT and tech products like software development evolving from accommodating desktop needs to remote working needs.

The unexpected increase in remote working is presenting opportunities as well as challenges: on the one hand, startups like Zoom and Slack and giants including Google and Microsoft are providing their tools for free, hoping that people who use them in a crisis would carry on once normality returns. On the other hand, few systems are already squeaking at the edges. Remote SaaS-based products are booming being free from these shortcomings. The SaaS market is expected to reach $164.29 billion by 2022, as per Transparency Market Research. Emerging SaaS-funding businesses are also indicative of this fast-growing market. The key innovations that make SaaS-based remote working software an attractive option include accessibility, upgradation, affordability, ease of use, employee-focused, and collaboration.

The HR Best Practices During COVID-19

An increasing number of HR managers are innovating employees’ work schedules and assignments by enabling flexible scheduling parameters and helping them being creative in how the work gets done remotely. It also involves providing employees' guidelines on how to make most of their quarantine, beating the hurdles related to remote working through SaaS-based remote working software that enables 24/7 collaboration and data encryption and being productive at the comfort of their homes.

Some of the best practices that HR leaders and managers are adopting worldwide include:

1. Deploying a mainstream SaaS-based remote working product/software to form a remote working culture, especially during times of crisis
2. Reframing recruitment practices and manpower by precise manpower analysis and forecasting
3. Remote engagement of the employees with different tele-activities
4. Adopting virtual recruitment (online interviews and remote working) model to fill the talent gap during the time of Covid-19 crisis 
5. Spreading out the employees’ density throughout a workday vs. everyone working a standard eight-hour shift.
6. Having teams work through SaaS-based collaborative software, teleconferencing and/or internet meetings.
7. Allowing flex-time opportunities for most of the positions.
8. Expanding eligible positions for remote working environments.
9. Imposing respiratory etiquettes at workplaces.
10. Ensuring regular disinfection treatment of the offices and facilities.

Overcoming the Hurdles

Of course, there are certain challenges of a remote work including

1. Poor time management
2. Technology issues
3. Team communication
4. Distractions
5. Data security
6. Privacy threats
7. Not-so-healthy lifestyle

however, the recent boom of remote working technology like SaaS-based software ensure a remote working environment that is inter-connected 24/7, collaborative, encrypted and free from technical jargons. That forms the basis of future implications of remote working models and corresponding software being developed.

Final Thoughts

Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent crisis are eventually going to end, though we don't know when. Shaping the recruitment policies to keep the workplace intact in terms of benefits, and society with the least employment rates, via changing HR practices and recruitment landscape through remote working softwares and virtual recruitment tools, seems, for now, the only sustainable practice in the future.