Abstract

Environmental uncertainty and unexpected events can cause disruptions to organization and influence organizations’ operations and performance. Environmental disruptions have advocated several firms to implement crisis management approaches and strategies in order to reduce economic losses during uncertain events. However, most of these strategies focus on large organization, and little attention is given to Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). HEIs have been under increasing pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic and several administrative departments in these institutions have developed contingency plans to overcome the challenges faced during COVID-19.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Human Resources Management (HRM) has played a crucial role for developing working practices and strategies to maintain the organization’s performance. Indeed, traditional approaches, such as constant monitoring and static planning approaches have proved to be not effective during environmental disruptions. Hence, this research focuses on the role of HRM in maintaining HEIs’ performance during uncertain times such as COVID-19.

The finding suggests that employee involvement, strengthening virtual teamwork, and empowerment are the most predominant practices that promote HRM resilience, and eventually will support organizations in maintaining their performance during disruptive events. First, employee involvement stimulates employees to make prompt decisions to unexpected events. It allows employees to apply their knowledge in problem solving, and acquiring responsibility for designing and directing the work not just carrying out their jobs. Second, virtual teamwork strengthen coordination between different functions across HEIs. It enhances employees to establish innovative approaches to overcome crises. Third, empowerment stimulates employees’ decision making process and can deliberately enhance employees’ flexibility, which is crucial during uncertain events that require fast decision making processes. 

This research has important implications for researchers and practitioners. The findings of this research can be considered a humble step toward establishing more resilient HRM practices in order to maintain organization’s performance during uncertain events.

Key words: COVID-19, HRM, resilience, performance.

Conference Title

المؤتمر الثالث المحكّم لكلية الاقتصاد والعلوم الاجتماعية ”تحديات الاقتصاد الفلسطيني في مواجهة الضغط السياسي وتداعيات أزمة كورونا“

Conference Country

Palestine

Conference Date

April 11, 2021 - April 11, 2021

Conference Sponsor

جامعة النجاح الوطنية/ نابلس, فلسطين

Additional Info

Conference Website