Chapter 2: Literature Review

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Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry (TOJQI)

Volume 12, Issue 7, July 2021: 9348 - 9357

Research Article

Analysis of HRD Research, and Practices for Employee Engagement in COVID-19 Pandemic

Riya Ghosh

Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies; Symbiosis International (Deemed University)

Abstract

In the current covid-19 pandemic situation it is of utmost importance that human resources in

organizations worldwide are managed efficiently with innovative and appropriate employee

engagement programs which are designed specifically for organizations to meet the needs of their

working professionals. This paper is a review paper that is primarily based on secondary data

collected from various resources such as articles, research papers published, newspapers, blogs, and

other valuable, and insightful, relevant online sources. One of the most important sources of

information taken in this paper is reports from the World health organization. The paper dives deep

into various employee engagement methods developed and used by companies across the world for

building an optimum and balanced work-life balance among their employees. Work from home

should not be considered working 24 hours a day. Although productivity has to be maintained and

ways are to be identified to increase optimum productivity in a specific period, third comes the

importance of employee engagement which will make the working professionals feel valued and add

value to their life. Research has shown that balanced work from home and organized employee

engagement events are highly beneficial to both the company and the employee. It not only increases

the morale of the working professionals and keeps them interested it is also a major factor motivating

them to get through the difficult time of the covid-19 pandemic. Millions of people are badly affected

by the Covid-19 pandemic and a huge majority of them are working professionals, this sights the

importance of a robust employee engagement plan, which will help these people deal with their life

situations better.

Keywords: India, performance management; employee engagement; learning and development;

engagement activities; work-life balance; covid-19; growth mindset; rewards systems; teamwork;

best practices; human resources; resource development

Introduction

The world has completely changed due to the covid-19 pandemic, which first started in 2019 and

which continues to date, here on July 2021. The media houses has stated that anybody who has not

taken the covid-19 vaccine, be it co-vaccine vaccine, covishield vaccine, or pfizer vaccine or any

other government certified vaccination is at risk of developing different new variants of the virus

causing the deadly disease. With the third wave of the covid-19 pandemic about to hit India with the

prominence of delta variant, it becomes more difficult for organizations to keep up the productivity

and their employees engaged in the current situation. Research has shown that the support of a

supervisor or reporting manager in the company is essential for line managers and team members to

work productively and remain motivated to work under such difficult circumstances during these

times (Charoensukmongkol & Phungsoonthorn, 2020). In this study, we will go through many

different ways of employee engagement, and best practices of human resource managers employed

during these times, which are more properly fitted to a work from home environment to keep the

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working professionals motivated, engaged, and committed to producing results in the work that they

do. Economic conditions of India have taken a downturn and we are facing the worst crisis we have

encountered for a long time, it is necessary to take insightful lessons from this crisis to be capable of

dealing with such deadly epidemics if we face any in the coming future. We will take a look into the

different practices involved in bringing about a sustainable human resource management framework

in the emergency of the covid-19 pandemic, which will also explore the involvement of superiors and

management team of an organization whose support is needed to together cope with the situation

(Manuti et al., 2020). The study will also look into possible practices which will carry on even when

the crisis of covid-19 pandemic eases, search human resource management best practices that will

change and improve productivity in an organization in a fruitful manner benefiting both the

management and the employees who work at the organization’s shop floor level. Leadership,

communication, and meaningful purpose are some of the cultural aspects of an organization that will

be dealt with in the study and their importance are to be highlighted in this crisis (S. Singh, 2020).

Further study is important to develop frameworks and methods of innovative employee engagement

practices develop and to be used by human resource managers in an organization to deal with

employees including the white-collar blue-collar and others who are directly affected by the covid-19

pandemic.

Rationale of the study

As the nation has been in a lockdown for almost two years now, the various organization has

developed innovative ways to connect online, and successfully implement the work from home style

of working. For many, it has been a tremendous success which has helped the organization save a

huge sum on rent, accommodation, canteen, electricity, transportation charges along with many

others. It has helped many organizations go green and carbon-free with ease, as they have aimed at a

quicker pace. But achieving this feat was not an easy task and it came with its challenges. Innovative

and productive frameworks and practices had to be developed to engage employees in a work-from-

home setting, in which they can flourish, be productive, and remain motivated in these difficult

situations. This paper explores the various ways in which a creative and innovative employee

engagement program has been implemented in organizations throughout the nation, which helps

employees stay committed, satisfied, and motivated, easily in a work-from-home situation in the

covid-19 pandemic.

Objective of the study

To determine the HRD research on best practices for employee engagement in the covid-19 pandemic.

Research Methodology

This paper is a theoretical paper, primarily based on secondary data collected from various sources.

The secondary data on which the paper is based is collected by various researchers and groups

working on the lines of employee engagement in the Covid-19 situation, its positive and negative

impacts on the employees work life and the various motivational factors to keep the workers content

and actively participating in the work activities even in the lockdown period from the comfort of their

homes. While conducting research, most of the data was derived from, research papers, articles, blogs,

newspapers, and online sources which provided essential insights into the employee engagement

practices and various motivational factors influencing the work of employees during the covid-19

lockdown, along with variables influencing the effective performance of employees during these

tough times. The conceptual data collected from varying streams are collocated manifold, so to

provide some new direction and understanding of the available material on the subject on which the

research is being conducted. Authentic data regarding the covid-19 pandemic, are collated from the

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reports presented by the World health organization. Going further a methodical and intensive

literature review was conducted related to the objective of the research, mainly focusing on the

identification of different variables influencing motivational factors of employees during the

lockdown period, and to determine the effects of various employee engagement practices applied

during lockdown for employee motivation, effective and efficient performance at work. The method

of the integrative literature review was used which is a unique form of research, which helps create a

new understanding and knowledge base on the topic which is researched upon. The role of employee

engagement is crucial to keep the employees linked to the work environment, at the same time

keeping their morals high by improving the motivational factors which drive them to work effectively

even when away from the office environment. Well executed employee engagement practices

specially designed for tackling the work-from-home situation in the lockdown period will increase the

motivational factors, along with keeping employees satisfied and committed even in these tough

times. This research helps understand what are the various methods, techniques, and activities that

keep the spirits high of the essential workforce in these tough times which keeps the company running

smoothly. There is a lot to learn from the research done on these topics, to be effectively used in some

similar situations if faced with, in the coming future. Also, learnings on how we can keep our staff

happy at work in times of crisis. This thus will be the structure of the research and the methodology

on which it will be conducted.

Brief on COVID-19 lockdown

In 2019 a serious respiratory disease first appeared in Wuhan province of China. Initially thought to

be a by-product of the fish market in the same province. According to the World health organization,

there are a total 183,934,913 number of confirmed cases globally and a total number of 3,985,022

deaths that have occurred due to this virus and still counting. These numbers are reported to World

Health Organisation (WHO) as of 6th July 2021, and a total number of 2,989,925,974 vaccine doses

have been administrated worldwide until the date mentioned. Situation analysis data according to

specific region states that the maximum number of confirmed cases are seen in America which is

73,013,45, followed by Europe which states a staggering number which is 56,422,101confirmed

cases, coming to South-East Asia in the third position of maximum covid–19 cases standing at

35,398,817confirmed. Then there is Eastern Mediterranean with 11,207,055 confirmed cases,

followed by Africa which has 4,224,102 confirmed cases, then coming to Western Pacific with

3,668,621 confirmed cases.

This virus was introduced to the common people as a very common virus that primarily infects the

nose, sinuses, or upper throat. The virus can be introduced to a human body, or a mammal body by

any of the mucus layers of our body, be it tongue, nose, or eyes. Although the coronavirus pandemic

has been deadly in its sense, it is to be mentioned that not all coronavirus is dangerous. And many of

the people who were infected have developed some kind of immunity to it by mutation, which causes

them to be asymptomatic to the symptoms associated with the virus.

The outbreak which first occurred in 2019, China, then World health organization (WHO) identified

this virus to be SARS-CoV-2 which was stated to be a brand-new type of the virus previously known

as coronavirus. This variant was highly mutable and spread across the world within a small period,

infecting millions of people as it went. The common diseases related to this virus are pneumonia,

heart and liver problems, in many cases septic shock, and even death can occur. SARS-CoV-2 is said

to attack the respiratory tract and the organ most affected by it is the lungs, which if one person is

severely affected by the corona-viruses disease may face loss of a minimum of some percentage

functioning of it. Many other complications associated with the lungs are coming to light in the days

after the pandemic started, such are yellow fungus disease of lungs caused as an after effect of the

viral attack. The main way of transmission of the virus is through person-to-person contact, the

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infection can range from mild to a deadly kind form within a short period. The variant of the virus

which has affected the world right now is a part of the family that consists of seven types of

coronaviruses, this family also includes the viruses which cause deadly diseases like Middle East

Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), along with Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Other

viruses in this family are the ones that are very common and occur whenever a person is suffering

from cold during the year, but as they are very common, they don't stand as a threat to humankind.

There is a wide range of symptoms associated with this disease which start from acute fever, shortness

of breath, which caused trouble breathing leading to fatigue, chills which sometimes occurred with

shaking, sore throat, headache, body aches, congestion, a loss of smell along with loss of taste or one

of the two, some people also encountered nausea and diarrhea, one of them or both.

Many countries have been severely affected by this disease and they have built their mechanism to

deal with the outbreak. In India we can observe many restrictions such as nationwide lockdown, the

heavy advertisement for social distancing, making it mandatory to wear a mask whenever one steps

outside their homes, in absence of which the person is facing charges and penalties for the same.

Detailed notices have been issued on how to deal with the outbreak when one encounters it, and the

medical facilities are being developed faster than anytime before to fruitfully deal with the situation

which has arisen.

In these difficult times, however, the economy has to be strong which will eventually help to treat the

situation at hand, for which companies and industries have to go on. Most organizations worldwide

have adjusted to a new kind of system which was present earlier but is being utilized to its full

potential now when it has come face to face with this deadly situation and is known as work from

home (WFH). This has made organizations stand strong where the industry is dependent on human

intellect rather than the production of products. Work from the home system has been highly

beneficial for the IT sector which effectively tackled the situation and shifted to the work-from-home

regime overnight and has also made profits during these hard times as in an industry perspective.

Necessary equipment such as laptops, internet connection, and other necessary tools was given to

every employee in capable organizations, and this transfer has been very rapid which has helped the

situation and was possible with the help of the robust delivery system in India made possible by the

evolution and strength of the E-Commerce industry.

But for the employees, it has been a difficult challenge adjusting to the home environment when they

are habituated to working from the office, and the climate change which has occurred suddenly has

made them demotivated, less enthusiastic, and the productivity has also seen to be decreased. The

work-life conflict has arisen in the following years due to lack of concentration which happens

because of frequent home-related works that pop up when a person is working from home which also

includes interruptions by family members and activities that need to be taken care of when a person is

at home. In the situation where the employer is unable to equip the employees with proper equipment

and tools such as computer, mouse, printers, scanners, headphones, internet connection, a dedicated

workplace which must be a quiet place where one can concentrate, it leads to the dissatisfaction in

one’s life related to work issues which add up to the problem one is already facing at the current

pandemic related situation. Many industries which are not well adjusted to the work-from-home

system face other issues such as not getting the salary on time, or struggling with lack of job security,

due to these and many other reasons employees are not able to concentrate or focus on their work.

Here comes the role of employee engagement which is the process of taking care of the employees by

the employer by engaging them through various methods which will keep them going, even in these

difficult situations. In this paper, we will discuss various methods and best practices involved by the

human resource department of organizations worldwide, which will help employees achieve a

hundred percent result in a work from the home situation and engaged them in such a way that will

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ensure productivity, efficiency, with the proper work-life balance and taking care of the health of the

employees at the same time.

8) Employee Engagement

Employee engagement can be defined as the level to which an employee is passionate about their

work and how far he can go for the well-being of their organization to prove their commitment to it.

The term employee engagement was first announced or recognized in late 2000, where the importance

of engagement in the employees and making them comfortable with the work was linked to the

productivity that they showed and the profits that the company or the organization made. In today's

modern-day and age, employee engagement goes beyond activities such as games and events, but they

are much more linked to what drives performance in a workplace setting.

Employee engagement correlates to the strength of a person's mind and the kind of emotional

connection the person makes with the work that they do. If the employee is having a connection with

the work and sees his or her work as valuable, along with their contribution as being valued, it will

create an environment where the mind can work to its full potential and be most productive.

Research has shown that a high level of employee engagement leads to a lowering of attrition rate

which is due to the cultivation of customer loyalty which improves organizational performance and

profit increases the value of the stakeholders.

According to the Johari window concept, there is an open area window that relates to the quality of a

person which is known to that person and also to the people in their surrounding environment. Then

comes the blind spot window which is not known to the self but is known to other people in the

environment of the person. And then comes the hidden area window which is known to self but not

known to others. Because of this, a window containing things about the self that might be

embarrassing ought to be kept private for the comfort of the individual. Lastly comes the great

unknown, in the unknown window, properties are not known to self or others, this may contain hidden

potential talents or opportunities for the person which is not known until discovered. The open area

window should be the biggest window in one's Johari window model.

Employee engagement may be beneficial in discovering the hidden potential in a person by engaging

and making them use their imaginative power to increase their potential to the fullest. Employee

engagement makes the person comfortable in using their imagination to innovate and bring new ideas

to the table, which may uncover their talent which was not known to the team or self before or when

not engaged in the work environment.

a) before covid

Employee engagement has always been a hot topic, because it is a proven fact that a company that

devotes resources to employee engagement, makes better decisions for itself and its client, because of

their resources having work satisfaction and they liking the work that they do. This leads to the

employees being more innovative and coming up with ideas that are successful and lead the

organization to success as they deeply want to be associated with the company and want to see it grow

and succeed. Companies having a workforce like this is sure to thrive and overcome any challenges

that they might face in the future.

Employee engagement activities which were in works before the pandemic hit, were usually events,

programs, outings, and parties organized for employees to have a change of mind, view, and to relieve

them from the work stress for a small amount of time, which will be enough for them to recuperate

the lost energy, these were necessary as the company aimed to improve teamwork, bring better

association among the employees, and managers being comfortable with team members, and vice

versa. The events organized in the pre-Covid period may consist of talent shows, tea parties, karaoke,

games and activities, and other cultural events along with regional and national festivities. The work

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of a human resource manager was previously deemed limited to organizing these events and social

gatherings which were termed as employee engagement and that was it.

b) after covid

Post covid employee engagement practices were more focused on a harmonious work-life balance,

and organizations all over the world developed and cultivated a system of putting people first and

developing it into the company culture. This system has helped employees feel cared for and have an

emotional connection with the organization which helps them feel like a family at work and boost

their productivity. Big organizations have decided to have a mixed working culture in their offices,

where people will be having the option to move flexibily from work from the office to work from

home. Although the concept of work from home was their way before the pandemic came into

existence, the efforts to integrate the work from home along with productivity have been a great

success in these times. Another noticeable change that has occurred due to the new system of work is

a faster adaptation to technologies, which is prominently seen among employees across organizations,

this brings a need for better performance management tools which is another area of improvement in

the work of human resource managers as they will get a chance to bring innovation in this area with

new performance management systems which are specifically designed to work in the pandemic

situation and fill in for the disconnect that employees might feel.

Factors affecting employee engagement during COVID-19

Employee engagement depends a lot upon the motivational factors that play at work. There are

various tools used by managers to motivate their employees starting from constructive feedback to

pay raises and incentives. These important motivational factors affecting the engagement of an

employee in the organization can be categorized into two different fields of intrinsic and extrinsic

motivational factors. Where intrinsic motivational factor can range from positive feedback and a wish

to develop professionally through career growth and learning while enjoying the journey, extrinsic

motivational factors may include factors which prioritize materialistic and monetary benefits.

a) Intrinsic factors

Employees might sometimes feel that their work is not adequate for their knowledge and skills and

may feel demotivated due to it. This may lead to less employee engagement and can be corrected by

giving priority to the distribution of work based on the skill set of the individual.

Employees are also motivated intrinsically when their work is rewarded which gives them a sense of

being valued and the work that they do appreciate within the organization they are working in.

Giving an employee authority and rights to delegate to their teams, can give them a boost of

confidence and can be motivational for them to do better work as an employee, improving employee

engagement. This serves as a great tool in situations where people need intrinsic motivational factors.

Other important motivational factors used as intrinsic tools are autonomy and recognition, used

heavily in this time of pandemic as it is an excellent tool of employee engagement.

b) Extrinsic factors

In a survey to determine intrinsic and extrinsic factors of motivation directly affecting employee

engagement, it was found out that 33% of people pointed that their motivation comes from intrinsic

factors whereas 11 % of people considered extrinsic factors as being the primary motivators for them.

(R. Singh, 2016).

It was found out that money being an extrinsic motivating factor is not that much of a big deal when it

comes to necessary equipment which is needed to work safely and happily. It came as it was realised

that frequently chosen option by 11 % of the respondents and was stated to be a non-motivator which

is just necessary to support a good quality of life. (Putra et al., 2017)

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Practises utilized in the past year to smoothen the shift from offline to online mode and

maintaining employee engagement

Consumer behavior has been affected much by COVID. E-commerce transactions increased by 72%

across all markets in Q2 2020, making the retail sector one of the first to feel the impact. The

flexibility of IT infrastructure should be able to completely operate their company with remote

facilities.

Upgrades are required in three main operating areas to shift the offline mode to completely online.

1> Remote workforce: Moving your communications to the cloud may significantly improve the pace

and scope of your company's operations.

2> Digital Partners: Decoupling the old infrastructure into a collection of loosely connected

microservices and unique APIs can help the company to incorporate new digital partners at a cheaper

cost and faster rate. APIs are responsible for almost half of all B2B cooperation.

3> Online Consumers: It must necessary that your organization can absorb sudden increases in

demand to enable cloud auto-scaling. When the demand on the cloud fundament grows or reduces,

auto-scaling allows you to deploy more VM (virtual machine) instances. This functionality may be

used to manage a variety of cloud assets, including virtual machines, web services, and API services.

Another crucial step is to put together a cloud data warehouse. A cloud data warehouse's purpose is to

serve as a single point of truth for all linked business intelligence and analytical solutions.

Employee Engagement tips to be undertaken during the time of the pandemic. These are some

strategies to keep the employees engaged during the work from home regimen:

In “hybrid” working mode there is a distributed workplace across the office, satellite offices, and

homes. There are options for the employees to solve any critical issue securely, and privately taking

help of the limited persons we want to share with while this was not possible when employees worked

face to face. Thus, interactions can be done privately with employees. Essential events are being done

to bring the employees into one virtual community. Strong communication is being built among the

remote teams. Team building activities, appreciation are being regularly held by the managers for

employee motivation and relaxation. There are few manufacturing companies like JK Tires, CEAT

which have elevated the downtime for their employees. Some companies also came up with TED

talks, e-learning content, webinars, self-initiated content to keep their employees engaged during the

lockdown period. IT companies like TCS, Deloitte, Accenture, Cognizant. Hinduja Global Solutions

are adopting techniques to motivate their employees during the pandemic time through live calls and

podcasts to alleviate their fear to stay positive. Also, digital personnel empowerment can be done by

providing various resources, learning opportunities, and materials for perpetual employee professional

growth. Brunswick group instanced to keep morale up and help employees feel connected. Employees

are being communicated with frequently. All employees are to be invited on a video conference call

every month to provide innovative business ideas to the team for business development. Hence,

Businesses must establish employee engagement and communication programs.

Thus, engaging the employees remotely creates a culture of transparency where employees can come

up with fresh and new ideas. Employee engagement initiatives increase curiosity and assist to bring

out the imaginative and creative side of the workforce. As a result, during difficult times,

organizations must implement effective employee engagement initiatives.

HRD research on best practices in lockdown to maintain culture and engagement in employees:

There has been a lot of research on what are the best practices to adopt in the lockdown period during

the pandemic to ease the process of shift that took place, bringing the work from the office to work

from home. Here are some of the most adopted practices by organizations worldwide which have

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been a staple of best HR practices and will be surely continued even when the pandemic situation

cools down.

here has been a lot of focus on bringing mental stability among the employees. Many of us have

suffered due to the covid-19 pandemic and have faced major losses of loved ones, family members,

friends, children, parents, and acquaintances, which have made the idea of death prominent in our

minds. People are mentally strong and as time heals everything people are also moving on with their

lives, and continuing work, but these are some scars which although gets suppressed but are never

really healed and can affect the productivity of an employee on a molecular level. To deal with the

situations organizations have appointed certified psychiatrists, psychologists, and councilors to help

employees get someone to talk to and seek medical facilities if required in certain cases as people's

ability to face difficult situations is honestly different and they have a different mechanism of coping

with it. These facilities have a specific framework and are designed in such a way that employees

have complete privacy and a confidential doctor-patient relationship, which makes them feel secure

while sharing their deepest fears, and greatest losses with strangers and help them get medical

attention which will improve their mental state and help them heal faster.

As the success of coaching and counseling has been prominent in the industry. Human resource

managers from the start are being taught to specialize in this field, as top MBA colleges all over the

world are now teaching and have included the subject of coaching, counseling, and mentoring into

their curriculum, and discussing case studies related to the wellbeing of employees, on issues related

to anxiety, productive and unproductive worries, topics such as emotional detox, and also developing

training framework and programs which will help them become professional counselors after

pursuing the subject further and to bring more recognition to mental health and well being into the

industry which will definitely be a strong pillar for a successful company in the coming future.

Human resource individuals and teams who are also specializing in psychology and psychiatry are

bringing forward innovative solutions through training programs and also selling the services to other

organizations who require their help, which helps the employees bring about notice to their

unproductive worries, and unconscious anxiety, which is harming their mental health and also

productivity, even when they do not realize that it actually is happening. Addressing these issues is

important and is given priority in the current pandemic situation.

Work from home can be turned into a great time to reflect on the performance of employees and

especially the performance of employees working in senior management positions, who are tasked

with taking care of the team and employees working under them and how proficiently they have

handled the process of change in work style overnight and how have their performance impacted the

business and motivation level of employees working in the organization. 360-degree reports of

performance management is one of the tools significantly used at organizations worldwide to keep

track of the performance of their senior management professionals and also to plan succession and

career paths for the future for them as they are the high potential employees of the organization. 360-

degree performance management system requires feedback from all the directions which will include

the professional's seniors, peers, two downs, and self, feedback generally on a rating scale of 1 to 5 or

1 to 10. These reports can tell a lot about how to have the professional navigated through these times

of difficulty, and how well they have adapted to the changes in working styles and kept the

productivity going, and increased the profits of the organization from their effective leadership skills.

For some organizations work from home can mean taking advantage of the employees, and making

them work more than their usual working time which would not have been implemented if they were

working from an office. Work from home can quickly turn into working 24 hours a day and this can

be especially difficult for females as they have to juggle between maintaining their home, taking care

of elders, and their children along with working and giving results at their workspace. Special

initiatives and programs have to be developed which simplifies and helps the process of shifting to

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work from home for employees who are needed and struggling with time management. Employers

have to take care that their employees are not exhausted and are not taken advantage of by giving

them tasks to be completed in a deadlines scenario and making them work overnight and disrupting

their work-life balance. An initiative like a few days off to reflect and self-care have been taken by

Deloitte India for their interns of 2020 which was a great initiative keeping in mind the need for work-

life balance and time to reflect on life and personal issues which are not thought for in the corporate

world. These are great initiatives for integrated work-life balance and such examples are seen

worldwide in different organizations that give value to their employees and safeguard their well-being

as they are the human resources who are the pillars of the company.

Another great thing that came out of this global pandemic in terms of employee engagement and

organizational growth, is that the relationship between artificial intelligence and human beings, have

grown stronger and people who were not aligned with using online tools and been on social media

have now been introduced to the system and now are leveraging the benefits of the same. The

platform for recruiters and leaders which has a global significance is LinkedIn which has been a great

source of engagement and motivation to get through this time for working professionals. ATS systems

are also getting more recognition and people are being trained to make their profile ATS proof, which

is an important tool in automating recruitment all over the globe.

LinkedIn has also been a beneficial social media site for working professionals, which is now being

used for giving recognition to employees who are well versed in managing their time and are bringing

productivity to the organization. Initiatives by organizations such as giving recognition on the social

media platform for being the best employee of the week or best employee of the month is trending all

over and other organizations are picking up on it which boosts the employee morale and makes them

competitive in achieving effective results in their work. Other traditional rewards such as cash

rewards and bonuses are continuing. One of the newer rewards seen in a pandemic is the spot awards

which are taking place, giving gifts for best work, which may be anything from a television set,

mobile phones to cars and apartments are trending in top organizations. Organisations are also giving

huge health benefits for employees during covid-19 to keeping them safe and a feeling of importance

and them being valued. Vaccination drives for employees along with great health insurance are a part

of the employee engagement best practices giving the workforce a sense of safety and well-being,

taking pressure off of them so that they can focus on work. All the small efforts count to make the

initiative successful.

Conclusion

This research paper dealt with the evaluation of employee engagement tactics and strategies which led

to the success of organizations during 19 pandemics. The method of research for this paper was

primarily based on secondary data collected from various sources like other research papers, articles,

blogs, newspapers, websites, magazines, and other authentic sources. Organizations must create an

environment for the employees that is conducive to provide freedom and inspiration to live a good

professional life which is inspired by quality work. Humans are the greatest assets of an organization

and if they feel dissatisfied at work it may lead to losses for the organization. There should be

communication and trust between the organization and its employee so that the goals and

achievements objective should be clearly communicated between the two for easier access to

important resources which will help in achieving these goals. Employee engagement hospitals signed

in such a way that there is the constant scope of learning, growing, improving, and taking action. An

optimum employee engagement setting will help in knowledge sharing among the employees and

bring their skill levels up, giving the organization skilled and valuable assets. What we can learn is

that training leads to the development of leadership skills, and when then introduced with optimum

work-life balance and work motivation, people have a positive effect on their professional career and

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that is reflected in their work improving the performance of their teams and profits of the

organization. Employee engagement has thus become essential in the covid 19 pandemic situation for

organizations all over the world.

Further implications

Organizations all around the world should look out for innovative and creative practices developed for

employee engagement during this covid-19 pandemic situation to keep their employees stimulated,

motivated, and also committed to the work that they are doing, meanwhile being satisfied and living

as best and blissful as possible during these difficult times.

Building strong online platforms and practices for employees to help them ease into work from the

home situation and also equipping them with proper tools and equipment necessary for going online

with good internet connection and infrastructure. Staying in connection is a big key to employee

engagement and thus the managers and especially human resource leaders should stay in contact with

their employees taking care of their needs as much as possible during these difficult times.

Developing practices to best innovate and motivate virtual relations is necessary for smoothly

achieving the objective among the engaged employees. By motivating and engaging employees,

ultimately a positive organizational culture will be developed which will help organizations switch

between a blended workforce easily.

References

[1] The effectiveness of supervisor support in lessening perceived uncertainties and emotional

exhaustion of university employees during the COVID-19 crisis: the constraining role of

organizational intransigence (Charoensukmongkol & Phungsoonthorn, 2020)

[2] UNDERSTANDING DRIVERS OF ENGAGEMENT FROM EMPLOYEES ’ PERSPECTIVE

DURING COVID-19 (S. Singh, 2020)

[3] The Impact of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivators on Employee Engagement in Information

Organizations (R. Singh, 2016)

[4] “Everything will be fine”: A study on the relationship between employees’ perception of

sustainable HRM practices and positive organizational behavior during COVID19 (Manuti et

al., 2020)

[5] Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on work engagement in the hospitality industry: Test of

motivation crowding theory (Putra et al., 2017)

[6] https://smallbusiness.chron.com/intrinsic-extrinsic-motivation-used-managers-10429.html

[7] https://wheniwork.com/blog/employee-engagement-activities

[8] https://www.outbackteambuilding.com/blog/employee-engagement-activities-during-covid-19/

[9] https://www.goco.io/blog/employee-engagement-remote/

[10] https://www.quantumworkplace.com/en/engaging-employees-coronavirus-pandemic

[11] http://www.celpax.com/ideas-for-employee-engagement/

[12] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

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