South Asian Academy of Management

South Asian Academy of Management: Leadership Working Paper Series
LWP-202004-10

Ensuring Employee Engagement Amid a Pandemic

Jawad Syed, PhD

In a fast-changing and uncertain situation such as the coronavirus pandemic, many leaders are struggling not only in terms of organizational operations but also in terms of continued engagement and well-being of their employees. As someone who studies organizational behavior and people management, I regularly tell students, business leaders and policymakers that employee engagement is the key for organizational survival during a crisis.

To cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, countries and governments are resorting to extreme preventive and precautionary measures such as social distancing, home confinement, self-quarantine, lockdown and curfew. As a result, organizations across the world are forced to cease their normal operations and instead are exploring and experimenting alternative ways of work to ensure not only individual productivity and organizational survival but also individual wellbeing and employee engagement.

In this essay, I explain how organizations can ensure the involvement and engagement of their employees during this pandemic. Based on insights from human resource management literature as well as current organizational approaches to coronavirus, I offer a list of fifteen steps that may be considered by business leaders to enable or sustain employee engagement.

Discussion Questions

1. What are the main challenges to employee engagement during a pandemic, and how can organizations overcome them using the strategies outlined in the paper?
2. How does the shift to remote work impact employee engagement, and what are the pros and cons for both employees and organizations?
3. What role does trust play in ensuring employee engagement in a remote work environment, and how can managers foster a culture of trust when direct supervision is limited?
4. In what ways can organizations integrate cultural diversity and respect for different time zones into their employee engagement strategies during a pandemic?

Citation: Syed, J. (2020). Ensuring employee engagement amid a pandemic. SAAM Working Paper Series, SAAM WP-20200410, South Asian Academy of Management.

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