HOW COVID-19 MAKES HR A MORE IMPORTANT RESOURCE THAN EVER
BY ERNIE SMITH / APR 20, 2020
At a time of great uncertainty, many human resources departments are putting more emphasis on happiness and employee morale than ever—and that may be raising the role’s long-term value.
Thanks to COVID-19, HR departments find themselves in an interesting position these days.
To put it simply, they are tasked with helping to build normalcy at a time when little feels normal, and that means not only helping employees to navigate the benefits that their company offers, but also helping to maintain overall mood and distribute important communications to people on staff.
And that makes the role of the chief people officer (or whatever your HR chief goes by) increasingly valuable, notes The Economist, which recently compared the role to that of a chief financial officer during the 2008 financial crisis.
“The duties of chief people officers, as human-resources heads are sometimes called, look critical right now,” the magazine wrote last month. “They must keep employees healthy; maintain their morale; oversee a vast remote-working experiment; and, as firms retrench, consider whether, when and how to lay workers off. Their in-trays are bulging.” Read more