This week marks five years since the World Health Organization officially declared a coronavirus pandemic. The World Health Organization declared a pandemic in 2005 after 114 countries reported 118,000 cases. At that time, 4,291 deaths were recorded.
The UK government had not yet announced a complete lockdown but many workplaces began to encourage staff to work from home. Schools were just days away from being closed. And then, Prime Minister Boris Johnson instructed us to sing Happy Birthday twice while washing our hands.
According to government statistics, between 31 January 2020 and the time when WHO declared the end of the global health emergency caused by the virus, 227,000 deaths in the UK were attributed to Covid-19.
As the number of cases peaks and falls, HR teams will have to adapt quickly.
They were forced to deal with the issues of self-isolation, furlough, and managing people goals, while also dealing with their pandemic concerns, like homeschooling, illness, and other personal problems.
The pandemic has arguably been the most significant 21st-century development to date in changing the face of work. Here are some of the ways that it has changed how we work, and HR’s role within this.
Most remote working is now acceptable
HR professionals may remember hastily drafting WFH Policies in March 2020, as organisations prepared to strictly follow government guidelines that forbid employees from coming to their workplace unless they hold certain “key worker roles”.
The rules on remote working changed several times in the heat of pandemic, and often depended on where you were. However, most employers who had previously frowned on it now encourage their staff to work remotely, providing them with the necessary equipment and support.
Five years on, the number of return-to office mandates has increased from major companies like Amazon or WPP. Office for National Statistics reports that more than a quarter (25%) of employees now have a hybrid work model.
While data from LinkedIn shows that the majority of workers believe some meaningful attendance at work is acceptable, half do not want to have more office days required than they currently have.
HR’s Reputation has Blissfully Grown
HR and IT were the two departments that came under heavy scrutiny when the pandemic struck in 2020. Both departments were crucial to ensure workers had the right tools and support frameworks to move their activities from a traditional office to a home-based one (or kitchen table). They also had to act quickly without compromising important business concerns like data security or wellbeing.
In 2021, a survey by CIPD/Workday found that 35% of HR teams had upgraded or reskilled their staff as part of the organisation’s response.
According to research by HR analyst Josh Bersin, most (53%) HR leaders are now in the C-suite. This is due to their responses to not only the pandemic but also movements such as Black Lives Matter and D&I, globalisation and remote work. According to research by HR analyst Josh Bersin most (53%) of HR leaders are in the C suite. This is a result of their response to the pandemic, as well as movements like Black Lives Matter, D&I and the rise of globalisation.
The focus on wellbeing has improved
The corporate agenda has shifted after the initial steps to protect workers from the virus, and then the controversial mandates to vaccinate workers before they return to their physical workplaces.
Seven in ten HR professionals said to the CIPD in 2022 that employee well-being was high on senior leaders agendas, and 42% said that senior leaders encouraged a mental health focus. In 2024 the same survey revealed that 53% organisations have separate mental health strategies and 43% still support employee mental wellbeing.
The impact of Covid-19 has not diminished, even though employer-provided mental and physical well-being has increased. The annual Mental State of the World Report by Sapien Labs, published on 10 March, found that many adults under 35 still experience decreased mental health and wellbeing.
Long Covid, a syndrome characterized by chronic fatigue, shortness-of-breath and difficulty concentrating, continues to hamper the ability of many workers to perform their jobs. A recent study by University College London (UCL), estimated that long Covid cost the economy billions of pounds each year.
Change is better managed in the workplace
Diversity and inclusion received heated focus after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. After the murder in May 2020 of George Floyd, diversity and inclusion became a hot topic. However, thousands of programmes were dismantled 5 years later under the Trump administration.
Artificial intelligence is evolving from a tool that an organisation could use in a chatbot into something that can perform simple administrative tasks faster and more accurately than humans. As AI has become more sophisticated, organisations such as Singapore Bank or Klarna are reducing their headcount. HR professionals have been at the forefront in building organisational strategies that combine AI and humans.
The fact that employees in 2024 said that there was “too many changes” occurring at once is not surprising. HR has become more determined to deal with the changes and support employees during these shifts after responding to the rapidly changing (and sometimes unclear) rules of the early pandemic months.
Gartner analysts recently predicted, that HR would need to be resilient in 2025 to more changes, such as shifts in employee demographics, new legislation, like the Employment Rights Bill (UK), increased worker loneliness, and an uncertain future in D&I.
Although it is difficult to predict the HR team’s reaction if a pandemic was declared in the future, it is likely that they would take it all in stride.
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