What was the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on HR?
The COVID-19 crisis brings up a lot of new challenges so HR agents are learning to adapt. A recent study conducted in September, 2020 by Fosway revealed that 100% of the HR staff surveyed noted that COVID-19 had a strong impact on their activity.
Keep reading to find out what has changed from an HR point of view and what the most recurring questions are.
This recent study conducted by Fosway brought a lot of issues to light for HR. The first issue we noticed was monitoring remote employees as they followed up on their COVID-19 related status. It was reported that 80% of employees spoke directly to their manager about their situation regarding to COVID-19 rather than directly addressing an HR agent.
Secondly, 70% of the HR staff think that they "do not have the ability to predict the impact of COVID-19" for their organization. Understandably, a lot of HR officers do not have the necessary resources, nor the time, to answer all employee questions related to the crisis, while simultaneously following up.
With the pandemic leading to a sudden shift to remote work, HR was pushed to adapt.
There is a clear need to ease the communication process between employees and HR. Digital platforms with HR portals that were once closed at the local level suddenly had to be opened up in order to enable remote communication between employees and HR.
To be able to answer employees' questions as quickly and accurately as possible, every HR department using Neocase Knowledge Base was able to create new articles to answer employees' common questions. Questions related to COVID-19 could be addressed directly through the Knowledge Base, saving time and productivity for both HR and employees.
Some companies accelerated their initiatives to launch the Neocase Employee Document Management (EDM). Creating and collecting documents is now so much easier thanks to EDM. Signing documents remotely is possible as well, with the help of electronic signature!
In summary, the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the digitization of HR processes. Today, digital and platform-based processes are essential for managing employees' requests, as well as everything from working remote to returning to the office. As Josh Bershin, Global Industry Analyst, explained, " If there's anything we've learned from the Pandemic, it's that companies need digital platforms that help them quickly build workflow applications."
Source: Linkedin post
"Digital HR platforms and HR service delivery management tools have played a key role for HR since the beginning of the pandemic. First of all, through multi-channel case management functionalities and knowledge bases, these tools enabled HR departments to communicate with their employees while working remote. They quickly executed the implementation of processes for managing remote work, return to the office, and the digitization of important processes that were still manual, all within a very short time. The implementation of the electronic signature was key for the continuity of work. Today, the need to reduce costs and accelerate HR transformation is forcing companies to plan the digitization of all HR processes and to equip themselves with specialized HR document management functionalities to be compatible with the GDPR. Now more than ever, Neocase is a strategic building block of the HRIS."
- Jérôme Ménard, Chief Product Officer