The Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world in a manner never seen before. Social lockdown, mass business closure, widespread unemployment, and for many of those still in jobs a shift to working from home. It’s the kind of impact only seen during world wars and in this crisis, HR professionals are the front line troops.
Tasked not only with rapidly implementing a company-wide working-from-home strategy to keep businesses that are still operational up and running, many HR functions are also operationally responsible for mass layoffs and furloughing of employees. This is all while building a crisis information and communication plan out, as well as keeping on top of the numbers of those directly affected by COVID-19 and what the appropriate company response might be.
Now, as large swathes of the global workforce move to a working-from-home model, employers are faced with a new challenge – that the vector for workplace discrimination will shift in parallel with the main mode of communication.
