COVID‐19 and the uncertain future of HRM: Furlough, job retention and reform

Abstract

The article argues that job retention should be a central aim and practice of human resource management (HRM). Set against the global COVID‐19 crisis, theoretical insights are drawn from strategic HRM planning and the economics of ‘labour hoarding’ to consider the potential benefits of workforce furloughing. Furlough has been supported in the UK by the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which represents a novel, but temporary , state‐led shift from the UK's market‐orientated restructuring regime. We argue that the withdrawal of state‐financed furlough may mean a quick return in UK firms to the management of redundancy. Yet, if the crisis is to generate any benefit it must create the conditions for a more collaborative HRM that delivers for workers as well as business, with job retention as a core priority. While change in this direction will mean confronting deep‐rooted challenges—such as job security, good work and worker voice—such change remains vital in creating better and healthier workplaces.

Socially Responsible Human Resource Management: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

“…However, SRHRM gained momentum in 2018 (n = 8) and culminated in 2021 with 23 published papers until November. Considering the appearance of the Covid19 pandemic and numerous challenges HRM practitioners face [102][103][104][105], we expect the publishing rate in the field of SRHRM to rise considerably in the coming years. Table 2 shows the distribution of papers published in the SRHRM domain based on geographical data coverage.…”

Inequalities in the disruption of paid work during the Covid‐19 pandemic: A world systems analysis of core, semi‐periphery, and periphery states

“…It is underscored by the predisposition of collective bargaining to deliberative decision‐making, democratic, cooperative behaviors in the workplace underpinned by trust between employers, employees, and their representatives (Schulz et al, 2021 ; Wilkinson et al, 2014 ; Wilkinson & Wood, 2012 ). Job support schemes during the pandemic were contingent on employers’ cooperation and willingness to partake (Adams‐Prassl et al, 2020 ; Stuart et al, 2021 ). This holds for most coronavirus job retention schemes, including those in the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Denmark, and elsewhere.…”

“…Our argument stems from a body of work linking collective bargaining with higher trust, coordination, and consistency of government response to economic shocks (Johnstone et al, 2019 ; Roche & Teague, 2012 ; Wilkinson & Wood, 2012 ) and spillover effects from the formal into the informal economy in periphery and semi‐periphery states (Freeman, 2010 ; Grimshaw & Hayter, 2020 ; Hayter, 2011 ; Hayter & Pons‐Vignon, 2018 ). The strength of ALMPs prior to COVID‐19 is an important factor because they enabled nation‐states, especially core countries, to swiftly expand existing policy instruments or design novel interventions at the onset of the pandemic (Adams‐Prassl et al, 2020 ; ILO 2021a ; OECD, 2020 ; Stuart et al, 2021 ). In periphery and semi‐periphery states, where ALMPs are used to mobilize the unemployed and economically inactive, they were leveraged to devise multiple instruments to support informal workers and other insecure groups in the population (ILO, 2021a ; Webb, 2021 ).…”

Covid 19 Pandemic and Healthcare Sector in North Macedonia: What Has Changed for the Human Resource Management

“…Key changes for HRM in healthcare organizations during COVID 19 Carnevale and Hatak (2020), have systematized the HRM challenges and opportunities during Covid 19 which include: the erosion of "fit"-involves adjusting new and current employees to drastically altered work conditions; disproportionate work-family effects-understanding the impact the extreme family demands in conjunction with heightened levels of work autonomy and thereby self-responsibility can have on employees' productivity and well-being, and which practices can alleviate such new avenues of family to work conflict, will be important; and disproportionate effects on alternative family structures-the grand challenge of our current health crisis is likely to illuminate vulnerabilities in an increasingly relevant, yet understudied, segment of contemporary family structure: childless and single employee. Stuart et al (2021), argued that Covid 19 crisis one more time showed that job retention should be a central aim and practice of human resource management (HRM). Furthermore, it is noted that "if the crisis is to generate any benefit it must create the conditions for a more collaborative HRM that delivers for workers as well as business, with job retention as a core priority" (p. 1).…”

“…According to the analyzed literature, the key challenges for human resource management in healthcare organizations during the Covid 19 pandemic can be systematized as presented in Table 1. Stuart et al (2021). Humphries et al (2021) have noted that "the pandemic intensified and reinforced, rather than radically altered, the dynamics of doctor emigration from Ireland", while Jamebozorgi et al (2021) and Rangachari and Woods (2020) are more focused on strategies and recommendations for staff retention.…”