A practical guide on the role of HR during the Covide19 Crisis.

1. Webinar About the Human Resources
Role During Coronavirus Crises
Practical Guide for Possible Actions to Support Organizations During
Coronavirus Crises
By: Rada Hrout
HR and Organizational Behavior Expert
www.linkedin.com/in/radahrout
Date: 4th of March
Time: 5PM

2. What Role Can HR Play During Coronavirus Crises
The whole world is facing unprecedented crises with the Coronavirus spread across contents, which doesn’t impact governments and medical sector only,
but its shadows reached organizations from all sectors and industries.
How can organizations protect their employees and maintain the business at the same time?
What is the role Human Resources Department can play to support the organizations in this tough time?
To help you in answering these questions, we summarized the possible actions that organizations and HR departments can take to protect the employees
and minimize the impact of the crises on the workflow.
The HR role can be classified in three categories:
Employees wellbeing and protection
from the virus
Financial crises management, absorb
the financial negative impact on the
organization
Business operations continuity, and
how to keep workflow
1 2 3
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3. Employees Wellbeing and Protection
Employees spend more than 6 hours 5 -6 days a week in the workplace interacting with tens and sometimes hundreds of people, this makes taking
predictive measures in this environment is crucial for the lives of our employees, customers and society.
There are number of actions the organization can take to decrease the possibility of virus spread in its premises:
Level 1 Protection Level 2 Protection Level 3 Protection
Replace the touch interface tools with other
non touch tools as, fingerprint access
Distribute germs killer (hygiene liquids across
the organization
Smoking areas can be a very critical spot, put
measures to control the access and number of
people allowed and how to deal with the
leftovers
Use disposable cutlery (mugs, dishes,
spoons…)
Encourage water hydration
Create awareness about the hygiene
precautions/practices every employee should
take when using organization facilities
Create awareness about the symptoms of the
Coronavirus using internal media channels
Multi Employee workstations should be
cleansed every time a shift ends, or employee
finish
Reduce the class-based training programs and
replace it with e learning solutions
Frontline employees/customer interface
should be provided with Masks, eye protection
and gloves.
Ask employees who have anyone from their
direct contacts suffering from flu symptoms
not to come to work till the case is proven not
corona
Ask employees having any of the flu symptoms
not to come to work and go to hospital
Reduce the use of paper and use soft copies
and emails
Reduce the meetings to the max and replace
it with video conferences and calls
Company transportation to be cleansed after
each round and ask employees to abide to
hygiene rules
Stop gym services and nursery in case
provided by the organization
Eliminate the open food in the cafeteria
services and replace it with packed food
which can distributed to staff
Spread positive vibes across the organization
1
Ask employees to take vitamin C supplements
Minimize the travel to the max
Place hygiene liquid beside the ATM machines
and card payment machines
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4. Business Operations Continuity
The Second area the organizations and HR should be considering when facing the Coronavirus spread is business continuity, how to keep the work going.
All the markets across the glob are impacted by the economical side of the coronavirus spread, but the severity varies based on the country and the virus
spread in it and the organization nature of business and how much connected to the Chines market (directly and indirectly).
Now what actions the HR can take to support the organizations to keep work running.
2
Remote Work Arrangements
One of the common practices in such
time is to allow employees to work
from home whenever that is
possible.
Jobs that:
• Doesn’t require face to face
interaction
• Have no physical element which
needs presence in the premises
• Can be done through the phone,
internet or courier.
Encourage Vacations
If the business is witnessing slow
down it’s a good time to give people
vacations. This will reduce the virus
spread risks and manage the
vacations balance
E Based Solutions
Reduce the face to face interaction
with more E based solutions as:
• E Conferences
• E Learning
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5. Manage Employment Cost
If the organization is witnessing a slow down or expecting it in the coming months, here are list of possible actions to be taken from employment cost side
to help in managing this situation. The actions can range from simple cost control to severe cuts
3
Benefits Management Review the existing benefits scheme and hold the investment in
none core benefits as (travel tickets, subscriptions, new
scholarships…)
Allowances Management
Review the allowances scheme and highlight areas for possible
saving. Ex. In work from home cases, transportation allowance can
be dropped till normal work conditions are restored.
Severe
Freeze New Hires Freeze noncritical hires
Promotions & Salary
Increase Postpone the salary increase and promotions when possible
Salary Cuts To introduce salary reductions
Headcount
Reductions
To reduce the headcount in case the situation staid long
Governments should support
organizations in such tough time
specially those directly impacted
by the crises.
One of the ways can be the Social
Security dedications:
Government can save companies
and employees during the tough
economical time from paying
social security monthly
commitments by reducing the
deductions or rescheduling them.
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6. Wish You All To Be Safe And Healthy All The Time
Rada Hrout
HR and Organizational Behavior Expert
www.linkedin.com/in/radahrout