COVID-19 and Human Resource Management Research: Current Status and Future

Directions

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly created a complex and difficult environment for
leaders and human resource management (HRM) professionals in coping with these
unprecedented challenges. In this context, there are very few studies on the impact of
COVID-19 on HRM. Therefore, this paper aims to review the existing research literature on
this topic to expand the current knowledge, detect research gaps and offer a foundation for
future research in this area.

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) technique
was followed for this review. Different academic databases were searched, e.g. Wiley,
Emerald Insight, Taylor & Francis, SpringerLink, Cambridge Core, and ScienceDirect. A
total of 43 articles published in 2020 and 2021 were reviewed.

Findings show that Research on COVID-19 and HRM was linked to five major themes:
leadership, employee performance, employee mental health, employee well-being, and job
insecurity. Scholars gave high concern to leadership, a moderate concern to employee
performance and mental health, and a low concern to employee well-being and Job
insecurity. The paper provides directions for future research.

Keywords: COVID-19, human resource management, Leadership, systematic review &

meta-analysis

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated an enormous impact on global health (International
Labour Organization [ILO] Monitor, 2020), global supply chain (Wang, 2022) and the
international economy (Kniffin et al., 2020). Individuals, cities, economies, countries, and
continents have experienced the shock of lockdown and the fear of the unknown (Akkermans
et al., 2020). ILO Monitor (2020) stated that 81% of managers and 66% of employees were
affected by the economic and social disruption of lockdown creating an array of challenges
(Bingham, 2020; Kniffin et al., 2020).

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The emergence of COVID-19 changed the “normal practices” of HRM (Bingham, 2020) and
caused uncertainties (Dana et al., 2022). Since organizations were obliged to implement a
lockdown policy (Bingham, 2020), in addition, human resources are the most important and
costliest assets in businesses (Dana et al., 2022), HRM managers faced several challenges in
dealing with employment downsizing, digital adoption to work from home, and developing
suitable performance appraisals and payment systems (Bhagat, 2020; Caligiuri et al., 2020;
Kniffin et al., 2020; Salamzadeh and Dana, 2021). HRM theories like "the flexible firm"
model and "HR architecture" model contributed to the development and justification of the
workplace disparities that the pandemic has uncovered (Butterick and Charlwood 2021).

Although relevant HRM practices are gaining momentum in the COVID-19 era, the academic
research within the HRM domain examining its antecedents and potential outcomes are still
limited (Carnevale and Hatak, 2020; Dirani et al., 2020; Elsafty and Ragheb, 2020; Wilson et
al., 2020). This topic is still in the initial stages of evolvement. Therefore, the purpose is to
review the reactions and responses of employees and organizations to COVID-19 and to
consider the new roles of HRM, based on the ramifications of pandemics in general, and
COVID-19 in particular.

The systematic review technique is used to conduct our research by synthesizing research
findings, and identifying all empirical evidence that matched the pre-specified inclusion
criteria to answer the following research questions,

RQ1 Which aspects of HRM were affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic?

RQ2 what are the directions for future research ?

Outlining the requirements for report identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion that
fell under the scope of this research, the PRISMA flow diagram (Preferred Reporting Items
for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) was followed for this review.

The study contributes to the knowledge of HRM and COVID-19 from different perspectives.
The first contribution is to map out an emerging research agenda for HRM aspects and
practices at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper is the first review addressing the
links between HRM aspects and the COVID-19 pandemic. The second contribution is to offer
a systematization of the literature investigating the interplay between epidemic outbreaks and

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five main HRM aspects: leadership, employee performance, employee mental health,
employee well-being, and job insecurity. Third, the screened pieces of literature advanced
the generalization of our SLR findings. The articles in the journals under review came from a
diverse field of study, such as business and management, healthcare, psychology, and
political science and public relations. Finally, we shed light on future research directions.

We begin this article by outlining the SLR methodology used to screen and select the relevant
literature for our research purpose, followed by the introduction of our findings through a
thematic and methodological analysis to identify how scholars had linked HRM aspects to
COVID-19. We then discuss the findings and provide recommendations for a future research
agenda. In the end, we present a conclusion for our SLR.

Methodology
We analyzed 43 articles published after the emergence of COVID-19 between December
2019 and June 2021 in 29 journals. We present the attributes of these articles in Table 1. The
methodology taken to select the eligible literature consisted of two phases: search strategy
and article selection. The review strategy for relevant articles was conducted using two steps.
First, we executed a comprehensive database search to detect relevant articles, namely APA
PsycNet, Wiley, Emerald Insight, Google scholar, SpringerLink, Cambridge Core,
ScienceDirect, NCBI, Taylor and Francis, JIEMAR, PsycArXiv, MDPI, Wolters Kluwer, and
PalArch. Second, we used a combination of search words such as “COVID-19” AND
“Human Resource Management” “COVID-19” AND “Employees” or “COVID-19” AND
“HRM aspects.” Based on the outlined search strategy, our review yielded 104 articles. We
eliminate 3 of them due to duplication, which left 101 for further consideration. After
reviewing the abstracts, titles, and full-text screening we excluded another 58 articles, which
left us with a closing list of 43 eligible articles. Details of these articles are presented in
Appendix 1. To ensure an effective SLR, we followed Liberati et al. (2009) by using the
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow
diagram (see Figure 1).

“Insert Figure 1 here”

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The PRISMA flow diagram illustrates two screening processes. The first screening process
eliminated duplicated and incomplete articles. We also reviewed their titles and abstracts to
conclude the inclusion and exclusion criteria. We then employed a second screening process
to select eligible articles based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. We included both
theoretical (concepts, commentaries, reviews, and editorials) and empirical articles
(quantitative and qualitative) that had the research purpose of identifying the relationship
between HRM and COVID-19 pandemic. We excluded articles that were published in a
language other than English, consisted of an irrelevant population and outcomes, and were
not listed in the Scimago Journal Ranking (SJR) 2021. Theses, books, essays, and conference
papers were also excluded. The majority of the 43 considered articles were published in 38
highly ranked journals (see Table 1). In particular, nineteen journals are ranked as Q1 (50%),
eleven are Q2 (28.95%), seven are Q3 (18.42%), and only one journal is ranked as Q4
(2.63%).

“Insert Table 1 here”

Findings
To analyze the findings of the 43 articles, we first conducted a thematic analysis to
categorize the specific research themes. We then carried out a methodological analysis to
identify how human resource management aspects during the COVID-19 pandemic were
examined by scholars.

Thematic findings
We reviewed the 43 articles and categorized their content into five themes related to
leadership (n=16), employee performance (n=9), employee mental health (n=9), employee
well-being (n=5), and job insecurity (n=4) during the COVID-19 pandemic. More details are
provided below.

Theme one: leadership

16 articles discussed the role of leadership in supporting employee adaptability during the
COVID-19 pandemic (see Table 2). In particular, scholars examined the role of effective
leadership styles, such as transformational leadership (Suprapti et al., 2020; Antonopoulou,
Halkiopoulos, Barlou and Beligiannis, 2021), shared leadership (Salas-Vallina et al., 2020),

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bossy supervision (Kniffin et al., 2020), flexible leadership (Kaiser, 2020), responsible
leadership (Haque, 2021), task and relation-oriented leadership (Bartsch et al., 2020), gender
and leadership (Johnson and Williams, 2020; Sergent and Stajkovic, 2020), and how they
adjusted to the changes caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

Kaiser (2020) compared leadership at the beginning phase of the COVID-19 emergency to
the year earlier. He demonstrated a positive association between supervisory style and the
adaptability of employees to change. In other words, flexible leadership is significant to
persuade groups to adjust to change and to keep on generating outcomes in times like the
COVID-19 crisis. The incorporation of flexible and transformational leadership in times of
COVID-19 to motivate employees (Kaiser, 2020; Suprapti et al., 2020) was also supported.
Employees are more likely to be motivated if their leader spends time to support them and to
create an innovative spirit (Suprapti et al., 2020). Haque (2021) argues that the strategic
climate of health-care organizations should be aligned with the responsible leadership to
improve the well-being of their employees. In addition, it has been shown that
transformational leadership seems to be a major contributor to high levels of employee’s
satisfaction (Antonopoulou et al., 2021).

Examining virtual working during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kniffin et al. (2020) claimed
that leaders confronted difficulties by encouraging employees to work virtually in
comparison to empathic leaders. In the virtual climate, employees achieved high performance
in the presence of task and relation-oriented leadership (Bartsch et al., 2020). During this
time, leaders should also modify their performance appraisal system to consider the
difficulties of working virtually and the mental/physical health problems aligned with the
COVID-19 pandemic (Kniffin et al., 2020).

Another couple of articles focused on gender differences during the COVID-19 crisis
(Johnson and Williams, 2020; Sergent and Stajkovic, 2020). The first article stated that
female leaders made better decisions by motivating their employees to stay at home early
during the time of COVID-19 (Sergent and Stajkovic, 2020). The second article highlighted
the fascinating role of political female leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic by claiming
that the existence of COVID-19allowed female leaders to present their protective femininity
(Johnson and Williams, 2020).

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The implementation of effective managerial practices during the COVID-19 era was
introduced from diverse perspectives. Aguinis et al. (2020) argued that the positive effects of
CSR practices on employee outcomes during the COVID-19 era was dependent on how
individuals exercised these practices. They illustrated that embedded CSR integrated directly
with firm routines and strategies, which in turn enhanced employee outcomes. However,
peripheral CSR is not integrated into the strategy of an organization and therefore might
result in a negative employee outcome. Organizations also need to adapt their strategies used
in employee selection, training, support, health and safety, leadership, and virtual
collaboration (Caligiuri et al., 2020) to the COVID-19 challenges.

Fernandez and Shaw (2020) encouraged leaders to boost their skills and competencies by
communicating with individuals and building trust as well as connecting with internal and
external stakeholders clearly and honestly. Van Bavel et al. (2020) showed that an effective
leadership style and the existence of established trust contributed significantly to employee
empowerment. Furthermore, Elsafty and Ragheb (2020) suggested that leaders might
maximize individuals' satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing financial
and non-financial benefits through access to relevant information. Therefore, leaders should
protect employee well-being, provide access to relevant information, and promote resilient
behavior during the COVID-19 era (Dirani et al., 2020).

Surprisingly, Charoensukmongkol and Phungsoonthorn (2020) claimed that supervisor

support during COVID-19 had a negative impact on perceived uncertainty. They also
suggested a negative association between supervisor support and employees’ emotional
exhaustion mediated by perceived uncertainty. In particular, there is no negative relationship
between supervisor support and employee’s emotional exhaustion when working in a highly
resistant environment.

“Insert Table 2 here”

Theme two: employee performance

In this theme, articles discussed the interventions necessary to enhance employee
performance during the COVID-19 era (Table 3). These interventions included career
development and cultural psychology (Guan et al., 2020), psychological contract and safety
behavior (Du and Liu, 2020), organizational culture, HRM practices and strategic planning
(Hamdan et al., 2020), employee engagement (Chanana and Sangeeta, 2020), employees’

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satisfaction (Vo-Thanh, Vu, Nguyen, Nguyen, Zaman, and Chi, 2020), employee resilience
(Kim, 2020), emotional intelligence (Alonazi, 2020), and human resource development
(HRD) (Arora and Suri, 2020; McLean and Jiantreerangkoo, 2020).

Guan et al. (2020) considered the influence of COVID-19 on career development and
possible coping policies. In particular, they discussed how individual culture could adjust to
an emergency and how self-regulation and career progress could face the pandemic. They
argued that a high level of autonomy had a negative influence on the application of collective
policies (e.g., the social distancing policy) taken against the COVID-19 pandemic. However,
employees who had little authority and a high level of autonomy also had a higher ability to
balance life and work due to the low level of pressure they experienced. More specifically,
Du and Liu (2020) showed that perceived insider status affected prevention behavior to
respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. They also explained that preventing psychological
contract breaches positively influenced employee safety behavior during this crisis.

Hamdan et al. (2020) suggested that organizational culture predicted the effects of HRM
practices and strategic planning on job performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. They
also argued that creating a supportive working climate, flexible job allocation, and autonomy
contribute positively to job performance. Also, Vo-Thanh et al., (2020) affirmed that during
crisis times, employees’ satisfaction is positively associated with job performance. They have
also show that perceived health risk associated with COVID-19 (PHRCV19) has positive
influence on job performance.

According to Chanana and Sangeeta (2020), employee engagement in work-from-home

activities encouraged employees to stay in the organization during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, the organization-employee relationship (OER) influenced employee resilience
and flexibility to cope with COVID-19 consequences (Kim, 2020). Furthermore, Alonazi
(2020) conducted an empirical study of job performance during COVID-19 and found that
emotional intelligence is positively associated with employee performance. Thus, it is crucial
to create a supportive communication system to strengthen resilience by encouraging beliefs,
capacities, and interaction among members of an organization (Kim, 2020).

HRD practices in the COVID-19 setting were also considered to improve employee
performance (Arora and Suri, 2020; McLean and Jiantreerangkoo, 2020). Arora and Suri
(2020) revealed that HR managers were facing challenges to fill the gaps between three

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elements: the personal and professional spaces, the influence of COVID-19 on employees’
physical/mental health, and the lack of suitable internet access. They developed the “4-R
Crisis-Normalcy Model of HRD” to empower employees to adapt to the COVID-19
pandemic, using four stages: redefine, relook, redesign, and reincorporate.

McLean and Jiantreerangkoo (2020) emphasized the role of the National Human Resource
Development (NHRD) in the community to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and to be
prepared for the next pandemic, whenever it may occur. They suggested seven interventions
to be made by NHRD: producing Scenario planning that will prepare leaders to respond
quickly to emerging situations; preparing the leadership for the after-coronavirus stage;
enhancing digitalization in the workplace; training people to think systematically; supporting
networks based on keeping social distancing and wearing face-masks; eliminating racism;
career planning after COVID-19; and putting more effort in innovation to discover a vaccine.

“Insert Table 3 here”

Theme three: employee mental health

The emergence of the COVID-19 outbreak has raised researchers’ interests in the role of
national reactions toward employees’ mental health. In this theme, research covered
psychological issues (Teng et al., 2020; Usher et al., 2020; Wong et al., 2020) and mandatory
quarantined status (Xin et al., 2020) associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Interventions
to protect employees’ mental health and safety were suggested (Ho et al., 2020; Miotto et al.,
2020), see Table 4.

As a consequence of the COVID-19 lockdown, employees experienced physical and

psychological changes in their job responsibilities. Employees faced a high level of stress
associated with the risk of infection and job insecurity. Organizations have the responsibility
to protect their employees’ health by providing suitable mental health training, building a
resilience model, and decreasing the depression and anxiety of employees (Teng et al., 2020;
Usher et al., 2020). Organizations might also launch campaigns to encourage individuals to
be pro-active and to discover suitable approaches to keep up the social connectedness to face
the pandemic (Usher et al., 2020).

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Ho et al. (2020) provided a mental health strategy to reduce the psychological effects caused
by COVID-19 in hospitals. This strategy is composed of six psychological procedures and
interventions: identification of high-risk groups; improvement of screening patients with
psychological issues; online or smartphone provision of psychological intervention; support
for frontline health workers; distribution of accurate health information to the public; and
integration of hospital and community resources.

Miotto et al. (2020) developed a three-tiered model to run effective emotional and mental
health facilities during COVID-19 for clinical and non-clinical employees in the healthcare
sector. Tier1 focused on giving reasonable educational training for all. Tier 2 centered on
screening and offering emotional help in high risky departments. Tier 3 gave direct mental
health services to employees and their family members.

Due to the COVID-19 lockdown policies, individuals were more likely to perceive
discrimination, risk of infection, emotional distress, depression, and mental pain. The
mandatory quarantine showed an association between employee’s negative cognitions and
mental health (Xin et al., 2020). Similarly, Wong et al. (2020) showed that the higher the
absence of an organization’s supportive policy and personal protective equipment, the higher
the stress levels of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Aguiar-Quintana, Nguyen, Araujo-Cabrera, and Sanabria-Díaz (2021), job

insecurity has a significant impact on anxiety and depression levels in the time of COVID-19
pandemic. Employees are experiencing psychological tensions that could influence their task
performance. Likewise, employees who are terrified of getting COVID-19 might have a panic
stigma or deciding to end their life. Thus, HR managers have a significant role to handle
employee mental health and create a solid psychological attach with their employees (Saxena,
2021).

Furthermore, Sasaki, Kuroda, Tsuno, and Kawakami (2020) examined the effect of intensive
workplace measures applied in response to COVID-19 on employee’s mental health and job
performance. They reported a positive impact of workplace measures for COVID-19 on
employee’s mental health and job performance due to the increased awareness achieved from
taking these measures.

“Insert Table 4 here”

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Theme four: employee well-being

In this theme, the articles addressed how COVID-19 pandemic impacted employees’ well-
being. The COVID-19 emergence increased employee lay-offs, accelerated the rise of
digitization, reduced productivity, raised disturbances in work settings, and caused major
communication disruptions (Table 5). Organizations can take steps to overcome these
challenges by implementing a new workplace technology (Dana et al., 2022) and by lowering
costs through employee downsizing (Khudhair et al., 2020).

Carnevale and Hatak (2020) highlighted three challenges for HRM managers during the
COVID-19 lockdown: adjusting to mass remote work, supporting work-family balance, and
adopting a more inclusive approach to avoid socio-psychological issues raised by single or
childless employees. Besides et al. (2020) proposed that organizations should generate
emotion regulation practices to reduce the negative consequences of the COVID-19
pandemic on employee well-being. Tuzovic and Kabadayi (2020) suggested that the effect of
social distancing, the subsequent service continuity, and service hibernation on employee
well-being is moderated at three levels, namely: macro-level (government response), meso-
level (industry-related factors), and micro-level (employee-related factors such as skills,
knowledge, and social support).

In addition to the aforementioned authors, who stated that stress during an infectious illness
outbreak can result in difficulties focusing, anxiousness, and aggravation of psychological
health problems. Michel, Rotch, Carson, Bowling, and Shifrin, (2021), used stress-reaction vs
adaptation models to find that respondents reported a decline in both cognitive tiredness and
psychological symptoms with time, and that this improvement in participants' psychological
symptoms decreased with time. It's worth noting that all these considerable improvements
happened after adjusting for COVID-19 occurrences at the regional level, which were
strangely irrelevant to any type of job-related weariness or psychological problems.

“Insert Table 5 here”

Theme five: job insecurity

The COVID-19 pandemic had severe economic consequences, including unemployment,

which has exacerbated job insecurity. This theme included three articles discussing the
COVID-19 outbreak effects on job security (Table 6). The COVID-19 pandemic created a

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career shock for employees, with an unpredictable long-term impact. In summary, the impact
of pandemic outcomes on an individual differs by his/her interaction between contextual and
personal factors, where it is diverse from one to the other (Akkermans et al., 2020). It was
also noted that job insecurity, caused by COVID-19, negatively affected employee
engagement and accordingly increased turnover intention (Jung et al., 2020). Therefore,
managers should work on reducing the factors influencing job insecurity and give more
attention to individuals’ financial concerns that increase depressive symptoms and anxiety
(Wilson et al., 2020).

In an emerging market, Nemteanu, Dinu, and Dabija (2021) investigated the link among job
insecurity and employment instability during the COVID-19 epidemic, as well as job
satisfaction of employees. The suggested conceptual model examined the impact of job
insecurity and volatility on personal employee satisfaction, as well as management support
and advancement chances. The survey-based empirical investigation was carried out with the
use of a survey filled by 568 Romanian employees. The findings of a correlation analysis
revealed a high, straightforward, and positive association across job insecurity and employee
competitiveness in terms of enhancing employee competitiveness. Job insecurity and
uncertainty have different effects on the facets of job satisfaction. Only when it came to
contentment with supervisory assistance and career progression did job insecurity exhibit a
negative association. Employee job satisfaction, gratification with supervisor assistance, and
development chances were all negatively impacted by projected employment insecurity.

“Insert Table 6 here”

Methodological findings

We carried out a methodological analysis to identify how scholars had examined HRM
aspects during the COVID-19 pandemic. As explained in Table 1, the majority of the
considered articles were published in highly ranked journals. These articles illustrate diversity
in research design, empirical fields and disciplines.

In terms of research design, we found that more than half of the concerned articles were
empirical (n=23), divided into quantitative (n=19) qualitative (n=3) and mixed-methods (n=1)
studies. Questionnaires were widely employed in the quantitative articles (Michel et al.,
2021; Nemteanu et al., 2021; Bartsch et al., 2020; Du and Liu, 2020; Elsafty and Ragheb,

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2020; Kim, 2020; Xin et al., 2020), while interviews were used in the qualitative articles
(Kaiser, 2020; Salas-Vallina et al., 2020; Sergent and Stajkovic, 2020).

The rest were theoretical (n=20), categorized as follow: 5 were editorials (Akkermans et al.,
2020; Caliguiri et al., 2020; Guan et al., 2020; Restubog et al., 2020; Usher et al., 2020); 5
were reviews (Aguinis et al., 2020; Kniffin et al., 2020; Saxena, 2021; Tuzovic and
Kabadayi, 2020; Van Bavel et al., 2020); 2 were commentaries (Ho et al., 2020; Miotto et al.,
2020); and 8 were concepts (Arora and Suri, 2020; Carnevale and Hatak, 2020; Chanana and
Sangeeta, 2020; Dirani et al., 2020; Fernandez and Shaw, 2020; Johnson and Williams,
2020; Teng et al., 2020; McLean and Jiantreerangkoo, 2020).

The empirical studies focused mainly on service industries such as healthcare (Michel et al.,
2021; Alonazi, 2020; Elsafty and Ragheb, 2020; Hamdan et al., 2020; Haque, 2021; Salas-
Vallina et al. 2020; Suprapti et al., 2020), education (Antonopoulou et al., 2021;
Charoensukmongkol and Phungsoonthorn, 2020; Xin et al., 2020), information technology
(IT), financial services, media, insurance, and hotels (Aguiar-Quintana et al., 2021; Bartsch et
al., 2020; Jung et al., 2020; Kaiser, 2020; Vo-Thanh et al., 2020), and others (Nemteanu et
al., 2021; Caliguiri et al., 2020; Du and Liu, 2020; Khudair et al., 2020; Kim, 2020; Sasaki et
al., 2020; Sergent and Stajkovic, 2020; Wilson et al., 2020; Wong et al., 2020).

Various disciplines were covered in the 29 journals included in our study: business and
management (n=15), psychology (n=9), healthcare (n=9), political science and public
relations (n=3), HRM (n=1), archeology/arts and humanities (n=1).

HRM researchers had opted to use theories from other disciplines such as Business and
Management, Psychology, and Sociology (Deadrich and Gibson, 2007). In this systematic
review, we found that only the “Human Resource Development International” journal
addressed the Covid-19 effect on HRM aspects. We, therefore, highlight in the discussion
section this lack in HRM journals, which failed to cover this critical topic (see Table 7).

“Insert Table 7 here”

Discussion and directions for future research

To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the earliest attempts to explore how the academic
literature linked HRM to the COVID-19 pandemic. Below, we discuss our thematic and
methodological findings and propose directions for future research.

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Previous studies have highlighted that effective leadership was valuable for both individuals
and the organizational performance level during the COVID-19 pandemic. These studies
suggested several leadership practices to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19
pandemic such as adopting proper appraisal systems, empowering employees, and offering
financial support. A positive orientation results from positive behavior. Business leaders
today must exhibit effective leadership by fostering, recognizing, and ensuring their
employees' quality of life at work (Kumar and Patrick, 2022)

Leaders also have to pay more attention to shared leadership, transformational leadership,
employee well-being and employee resilience, team adaptability, and information
accessibility. Future investigations can assist in identifying more effective leadership
strategies to maintain employee performance (Kaiser, 2020) . It is recommended that the
strategic climate of an organization should be aligned with responsible leadership during
crisis to improve the well-being of their employees (Haque, 2020).

It is recommended that future research address certain research gaps linked to the COVID-19
pandemic, such as: managing under uncertainty, facilitating international work, and
redefining organizational performance (Caligiuri et al., 2020). It is also recommended to
explore how leadership characteristics are associated with organizational CSR programs in
response to the COVID-19 pandemic (Aguinis et al., 2020).

Although HRM professional bodies uphold the ethical standards and frameworks that support
HR work during COVID-19 pandemic, these standards are frequently disregarded. HR
professionals must determine whether professional ethical rules are meaningful and, if so,
how they may be properly upheld and implemented (Butterick and Charlwood, 2021).

Some studies attempted to explore certain HRM interventions to enhance employee

performance during the COVID-19 era. These studies suggested that career development,
(psychological contract and safety behavior strategic planning), employee engagement,
employee resilience, employees’ satisfaction, emotional intelligence and HRD practices
positively affected employee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though, it
has been suggested that a longitudinal study be conducted on how HRM interventions in a
time of crisis facilitate or inhibit the improvement of employee performance (Kim, 2020).

For future research, it is also recommended to explore the factors that motivate and support
employee engagement in organizations after the emergence of digitalization (Chanana and

13
Sangeeta, 2020) as well as to conduct a comparative study examining HRM interventions
during the COVID-19 pandemic in different fields (Du and Liu, 2020).

Both scholars and practitioners realize the importance of employee mental health in times of
crisis. However, as our review demonstrated, strategies to maintain and strengthen the mental
health of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic was fragmented and poorly grounded
empirically. Employees were facing a high level of psychological stress associated with the
transmission risk of COVID-19 (Teng et al., 2020), fear, and social stigmatization (Usher et
al., 2020). Psychological considerations need to be addressed to make quarantine an efficient
measure of public health and to avoid negative outcomes (Xin et al., 2020). In summary,
organizations need to create a positive mental health culture in the workplace to limit
employee mental health disorders and to reduce socially harmful behaviors (Teng et al.,
2020).
With the absence of COVID-19 workplace guidance, employees were reporting post-
traumatic stress (Wong et al., 2020). The inability of organizations to deal with these
psychological considerations will have long-term mental health implications (Ho et al.,
2020). The literature also revealed a gap in governmental policies in response to the COVID-
19 pandemic. Therefore, governments need to develop and enforce work-place interventions
to reduce the feelings of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty (Ho et al., 2020; Wong et al., 2020).
It is therefore recommended that future studies examine the effectiveness of organizational
and governmental interventions in a COVID-like pandemic.

The link between HRM practices and employee well-being in the COVID-19 era in the
literature is limited. Some scholars argued that HRM managers were unable to implement
digital workplace strategies; sustain employees in their work-family balance and their mental
well-being; (Carnevale and Hatak, 2020; Khudhair et al., 2020; Restubog et al., 2020), or
even maintain work security (Restubog et al., 2020). Organizations are not yet familiar with
remote working requirements (Khudhair et al., 2020; Carnevale and Hatak, 2020) nor with
the prevention and control strategies for COVID-19 (Restubog et al., 2020). Showing how
cognitive and psychological strains appear to follow an adaptation perspective whereas
physical strains appear to follow a stress-reaction perspective (Michel et al., 2021). Other
scholars argued that organizations should alter their mindset by looking at the coronavirus
pandemic as a new global reality offering opportunity for organizational development and
adaptation to overcome the challenges (Khudhair et al., 2020; Carnevale and Hatak, 2020).

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Therefore, further research is needed to explore effective employee emotional regulation
practices during a time of crisis (Restubog et al., 2020).

The literature shows that perceived job insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic was
accompanied by uncertainty, career shock, and turnover intention. The emergence of
COVID-19 increased employees’ uncertainty and work anxiety (Wilson et al., 2020;
Akkermans et al., 2020), which negatively influenced their turnover intention (Jung et al.,
2020). Therefore, organizations need to provide a high level of employee engagement,
effective communication, and strong employee–organization relationships (Jung et al., 2020).
Furthermore, Nemteanu et al., (2021) paper also enhances the human resources literature by
demonstrating how organizational competitiveness might be enhanced by focusing on
employees during a global pandemic. Future studies should also investigate the mechanisms
underlying successful HRM interventions that contribute to the removal of a negative
psychological impact of COVID-19, such as job insecurity.

Research Implications and limitations

Human Resource management is an advancing field of research. Due to the global COVID-
19 pandemic, organizations faced their most prominent work challenges for a long time.
Researchers have made a growing effort to understand how HRM practices can adapt to the
COVID-19 pandemic and overcome its challenges. Although more knowledge is needed to
enrich this field, this systematic literature review provides an evaluation of the research done
on HRM during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, a total of 43 articles addressing HRM
aspects, published in 2020, were analyzed.

The SLR contributes to the HRM and COVID-19 business research discipline. First, it
outlines the existing body of research that has empirically and theoretically explored HRM
practices after the emergence of COVID-19. Second, it offers a thematic and methodological
analysis of the relevant articles based on five themes (leadership, employee performance,
employee mental health, employee well-being, and job insecurity). Third, it illustrates that the
link between HRM and COVID-19 has attracted several scholars from different disciplines,
e.g., business and management psychology, political science and public relations, healthcare,
Archeology/arts, and humanities, and HRM. We used PRISMA adapted by Liberati et al.
(2009) to report our review, however more advanced methods for conducting constructive
review would be suggested (see Dabi, et al., 2020).

15
In addition our findings explained that COVID-19 has created opportunities that businesses
should be aware of to manage HRM activities effectively. In order to help leaders and HRM
practitioners understand the primary problems and possibilities linked to COVID-19, they
should be able to build an intervention strategy that is tailored to the requirements of their
organizations and people with the aid of the insights presented in this research (Hamouche,
2021). HR practitioners should provide a secure work environment for their staff during
crisis, allow and promote risk-taking during applying change management strategies (Easa
and Orra, 2020).

Although this review suggests some progress towards understanding the relationship between
COVID-19 and HRM aspects, there is a need to enhance the quality of scholarships to
achieve more effective integration of the literature concerning HRM aspects during the
COVID-19 pandemic.

The SLR has raised three main methodological gaps. Firstly, even though the majority of the
considered 43 articles were found in highly ranked journals, this number of articles is still
limited. Thus, there is still a need to conduct more research to provide a broader
understanding of the phenomenon. Secondly, it was noticed that the relevant studies were
either quantitative or qualitative, independent, and cross-sectional. Accordingly, we
recommend to future researchers to employ other relevant methodological techniques, e.g., a
mixed-method approach or a longitudinal study, to add more details and
explanations/interpretations to the research findings. Thirdly, the articles included in our
review were drawn from different fields, but articles from the HRM discipline were limited to
one article only. Therefore, we recommend HRM scholars and specialized journals to shed
more light on the COVID-19 phenomenon in the HRM field.

16
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19
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22
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691, doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000001962

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23
Figure 1. PRISMA flow diagram
Identification

Articles identified through Additional articles identified

database searching through other sources
(n =104 ) (n = 0)

Articles after duplicates removed

(n = 3)
Screening

Articles screened Articles excluded

(n =101) (n = 50)
Eligibility

Full-text articles assessed Full-text articles excluded,

for eligibility with reasons
(n = 51) (n = 8)
 Published in language
other than English
 Journals not listed on
SJR website
 Irrelevant population
Included

Studies included in the

systematic review
(n = 43)

24
Table 1: List of journals and ranking
Journal name Article count SJR ranking 2021
Bulletin of the World Health Organization 1 Q1
Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 1 Q1
American Psychologist 1 Q1
International Journal of Mental Health Nursing 1 Q1
Journal of Service Management 2 Q1
Journal of Applied Psychology 1 Q1

Nature Human Behaviour 1 Q1

Journal of International Business Studies 1 Q1
Politics and Gender 1 Q1
Journal of Vocational Behavior 3 Q1
Journal of Business Research 1 Q1
Frontiers in Psychology 1 Q1
International Journal of Hospitality Management 1 Q1
Journal of Public Relations Research 1 Q1
Occupational Health Science 1 Q1
Journal of Competitiveness 1 Q1
Emerging Science Journal 1 Q1
Journal of Sustainable Tourism 1 Q1
International Journal of Hospitality Management 1 Q1
Leadership in Health Services 1 Q2
Psychology Research and Behavior Management 1 Q2
Journal of Occupational Health 1 Q2
Human Resource Development International 3 Q2
Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management Research 1 Q2
International Journal of Health Planning and Management 1 Q2
Consulting Psychology Journal 1 Q2
Harvard Business Review 1 Q2
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 1 Q2
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 1 Q2
Journal of General Psychology 1 Q2
Journal of Leadership Studies 1 Q3
Annals of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore 1 Q3
Journal of Public Affairs 1 Q3
Palarch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology 1 Q3

International Journal of Supply Chain Management 1 Q3

Management Research 1 Q3
Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education 1 Q3
Business and Management Studies 1 Q4

25
Total 43

Table 2: List of selected articles on leadership and COVID-19 (n= 16)

Authors (year) Article title Journal name
Aguinis, et al. (2020) Understanding employee responses to COVID-19: A Management Research
behavioral corporate social responsibility perspective

Antonopoulou et al. Transformational leadership and digital skills in Emerging science journal
(2021) higher education institutes: During the COVID-19
pandemic

Bartsch, et al. (2020) Leadership matters in crisis-induced digital Journal of Service

transformation: How to lead service employees Management.
effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic

Caliguiri et al. (2020) International HRM insights for navigating the Journal of International
COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for future research Business Studies
and practice.

Charoensukmongkol The effectiveness of supervisor support in lessening The Journal of General

and Phungsoonthorn perceived uncertainties and emotional exhaustion of Psychology
(2020) university employees during the COVID-19 crisis:
The constraining role of organizational intransigence

Dirani et al. (2020) Leadership competencies and the essential role of Human Resource
human resource development in times of crisis: A Development International
response to Covid-19 pandemic

Elsafty and Ragheb The role of human resource management towards Business and Management
(2020) employees retention during Covid-19 pandemic in Studies
medical supplies sector-Egypt

Fernandez and Shaw Academic leadership in a time of crisis: The Journal of Leadership Studies
(2020) coronavirus and Covid-19

Johnson and Williams Gender and political leadership in a time of COVID Politics and Gender
(2020)

Haque (2021) The COVID-19 pandemic and the role of responsible Leadership in Health Services
leadership in health care: Thinking beyond employee
well-being and organisational sustainability
Kaiser (2020) Leading in an unprecedented global crisis: The Consulting Psychology
heightened importance of versatility Journal: Practice and
Research
Kniffin et al. (2020) COVID-19 and the workplace: Implications, issues, Harvard Business Review
and insights for future research and action.

Salas-Vallina et al. Fostering the healthcare workforce during the The International Journal of
(2020) COVID‐19 pandemic: Shared leadership, social Health Planning and
capital, and contagion among health professionals. Management.

Sergent and Stajkovic Women’s leadership is associated with fewer deaths Journal of Applied
(2020) during the COVID-19 crisis: Quantitative and Psychology
qualitative analyses of United States governors
Suprapti et al. (2020) Leadership style, organizational culture and Journal of Industrial
innovative behavior on public health center Engineering and Management
performance during pandemic COVID-19 Research.

26
Van Bavel et al. Using social and behavioural science to support Nature Human Behaviour
(2020) COVID-19 pandemic response

Table 3: List of selected articles on employee performance and COVID-19 (n=9)

Authors (year) Article title Journal name

Alonazi 2020 The impact of emotional intelligence on job Psychology Research and
performance during COVID-19 crisis: A cross- Behavior Management
sectional analysis

Arora and Suri (2020) Redefining, relooking, redesigning, and Human Resource
reincorporating HRD in the post Covid-19 Development International
context and thereafter

Chanana and Sangeeta Employee engagement practices during COVID‐ Journal of Public Affairs
(2020) 19 lockdown

Du and Liu (2020) Analysis of the influence of psychological International Journal of

contract on employee safety behaviors against Environmental Research
COVID-19 and Public Health
Guan et al. (2020) Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 Journal of Vocational
pandemic on career development: Insights from Behavior
cultural psychology

Hamdan et al. (2020) Antecedents of job performance during Covid-19: Pal Arch’s Journal of
A pilot study of Jordanian public hospitals nurses Archaeology of
Egypt/Egyptology
Kim (2020) Organizational resilience and employee work-role Journal of Public Relations
performance after a crisis situation: Exploring the Research
effects of organizational resilience on internal
crisis communication

McLean and The role of national HRD in an era of COVID-19 Human Resource
Jiantreerangkoo (2020) Development International

Vo-Thanh et al. (2020) How does hotel employees’ satisfaction with the Journal of Sustainable
organization’s COVID-19 responses affect job Tourism
insecurity and job performance?

27
Table 4: List of selected articles on employee mental health and COVID-19 (n=9)

Authors (year) Article title Journal name

Aguiar-Quintana et Do job insecurity, anxiety and depression caused International Journal of
al. (2021) by the COVID-19 pandemic influence hotel Hospitality Management
employees’ self-rated task performance? The
moderating role of employee resilience

Ho et al. (2020) Mental health strategies to combat the Annals of the Academy of
psychological impact of COVID-19 beyond Medicine, Singapore
paranoia and panic

Miotto et al. (2020) Implementing an emotional support and mental Psychological Trauma: Theory,
health response plan for healthcare workers during Research, Practice, and Policy.
the COVID-19 pandemic

Sasaki et al. (2020) Workplace responses to COVID‐19 associated Journal of Occupational Health
with mental health and work performance of
employees in Japan

Saxena (2021) A study on impact of Covid-19 over employee Turkish Journal of Computer and
mental wellness Mathematics Education

Teng et al. (2020) Life or livelihood? mental health concerns for Frontiers in Psychology
quarantine hotel workers during the COVID-19
pandemic

Usher et al. (2020) The COVID‐19 pandemic and mental health International Journal of Mental
impacts Health Nursing

Wong et al. (2020) Workplace safety and coronavirus disease Bulletin of the World Health
(COVID-19) pandemic: Survey of employees Organization

Xin et al. (2020) Negative cognitive and psychological correlates of American Psychologist
mandatory quarantine during the initial COVID-19
outbreak in China.

28
Table 5: List of selected articles on employee well-being and COVID-19 (n=5)
Authors (year) Article title Journal name
Carnevale and Hatak Employee adjustment and well-being in the Journal of Business Research.
(2020) era of COVID-19: Implications for human
resource management

Khudair et al. (2020) The impact of COVID-19 on supply chain International Journal of Supply
and human resource management practices Chain Management
and future marketing

Michel, Rotch, Carson, Flattening the Latent Growth Curve? Occupational Health Science
Bowling, and Shifrin Explaining Within-Person Changes in
(2021) Employee Well-Being during the COVID-19
Pandemic.

Restubog et al. (2020) Taking control amidst the chaos: Emotion Journal of Vocational
regulation during the COVID-19 pandemic Behavior

Tuzovic and Kabadayi The influence of social distancing on Journal of Service

(2020) employee well-being: A conceptual Management
framework and research agenda

Table 6: List of selected articles on job insecurity and COVID-19 (n=4)

Authors (year) Article title Journal name
Akkermans et al. (2020) The Covid-19 crisis as a career shock: Journal of Vocational
Implications for careers and vocational Behavior
behavior

Jung et al. (2020) COVID-19: The effects of job insecurity on International Journal of
the job engagement and turnover intent of Hospitality Management
deluxe hotel employees and the moderating
role of generational characteristics

Nemteanu, Dinu, and Job Insecurity, Job Instability, and Job Journal of Competitiveness
Dabija, (2021) Satisfaction in the Context of the COVID-19
Pandemic.

Wilson et al. (2020) Job insecurity and financial concern during Journal of Occupational and
the COVID-19 pandemic are associated with Environmental Medicine
worse mental health

29
Table 7: Disciplines and journals
Disciplines Name of journals
Business and management (n=15) Journal of Service Management

Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management

Journal of International Business Studies

Journal of Business Research

International Journal of Supply Chain Management

Business and Management Studies

Harvard Business Review

Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management Research

International Journal of Hospitality Management

Journal of Leadership Studies

Emerging Science Journal

Journal of Sustainable Tourism

International Journal of Hospitality Management

Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education

Journal of Competitiveness

Psychology (n=9) Journal of Applied Psychology

American Psychologist

Frontiers in Psychology

Consulting Psychology Journal

Journal of General Psychology

Journal of Vocational Behavior

Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy

Nature Human Behaviour

Psychology Research and Behavior Management

Healthcare (n=9) International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Bulletin of the World Health Organization
International Journal of Health Planning and Management
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Annals of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore
International Journal of Mental Health Nursing

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 Journal of Occupational Health
Leadership in Health Services
Occupational Health Science

Political science and public relations (n=3) Politics and Gender

Journal of Public Affairs

Journal of Public Relations Research
HRM (n=1) Human Resource Development International
Archeology/arts and humanities (n=1) Palarch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology

31