Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jun;7(6):e07233.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07233. Epub 2021 Jun 7.

Innovative human resource management strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic narrative review approach

Mohammad Reza Azizi  1 , Rasha Atlasi  2 , Arash Ziapour  3 , Jaffar Abbas  4 , Roya Naemi  5
Affiliations

Innovative human resource management strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic narrative review approach

Mohammad Reza Azizi et al. Heliyon. 2021 Jun.

Erratum in

Abstract

Background: The spread of COVID-19 creates disruption, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity in all organizations. People are the primary asset of any organization and help achieve their goals. Accordingly, to manage human resources sustainably, the organizational strategy review is an appropriate retort.

Objective: The purpose of this comprehensive review study is to identify unknown challenges, strategies, and unusual decisions related to human resource management other than clinical organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: The study applied a narrative review approach dissection based on organizations' human resource management strategies to combat the COVID-19 impacts. The review study conducted published literature research through the electronic databases at Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, and LISTA. The study extracted 1281 articles from the mentioned databases from November 2021 to the first quarter of 2021. This study reviewed selected papers, included 15 relevant articles, and removed duplicates according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Finally, the study developed a conceptual framework of human resource management strategies based on the literature findings to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results: The COVID-19 pandemic posed numerous adverse consequences, such as economic shock, global health crisis, change in social behaviors, and challenges at the organization level to continue business operations. Besides, the strategies included flexibility, strengthening internal efficiency, talent acquisition, and making innovative changes based on organizational assessment and needs for smooth business activities.

Conclusion: The appropriate human resource management strategies implementations would increase employees' mental well-being, satisfaction, productivity, motivation, and health safety at the workplace.

Keywords: Abrupt global challenges; COVID-19 adverse consequences; Human resource management; Infectious disease; Innovative HR strategy; Novel coronavirus; Pandemic; SARS-CoV-2 virus.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The screening process of articles included in the study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Visualization of the co-authorship networks between the authors of retrieved articles.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Visualization of the co-occurrence network of keywords in the retrieved articles.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Sustainable organization in terms of human resource management in uncertain conditions caused by COVID-19.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Madero Gómez S., Ortiz Mendoza O.E., Ramírez J., Olivas-Luján M.R. Stress and myths related to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on remote work. Manag Res. 2020;18(4):401–420.
    1. Abbas J. Crisis management, transnational healthcare challenges and opportunities: the intersection of COVID-19 pandemic and global mental health. Res. Glob. 2021:100037.
    1. Yoosefi Lebni J., Irandoost S., Mehedi N., Sedighi S., Ziapour A. The role of celebrities during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran: opportunity or threat? Disaster Med. Public Health Prep. 2021:1–2. - PubMed
    1. Nangia M., Mohsin F. Revisiting talent management practices in a pandemic driven VUCA environment - a qualitative investigation in the Indian IT industry. J. Crit. Rev. 2020;7(7):937–942.
    1. Yoosefi Lebni J., Abbas J., Moradi F., Salahshoor M.R., Chaboksavar F., Irandoost S.F. How the COVID-19 pandemic effected economic, social, political, and cultural factors: a lesson from Iran. Int. J. Soc. Psychiatr. 2021;67(3):298–300. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources