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.

Suggested citation: Syed, J. (2020). Ensuring Employee Engagement Amid a Pandemic. South Asian Academy of Management, Leadership Working Paper Series
LWP-202004-10, April 10. Available at: https://atomic-temporary-16473468.wpcomstaging.com/2020/04/12/ensuring-employee-engagement/

The full working paper is freely available, subject to due citation and credits, and can be downloaded and read from the following link. Employee engagement SAAM