This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of university teachers who participated in online teaching for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative method of data collection and inductive thematic analysis were used. The data were collected through a semistructured interview from 11 faculty members who teach in various universities in Pakistan. The analysis presented five themes of the online teaching experience: culture and gender-related issues, teaching effectiveness, challenges in online teaching, coping strategies, and faculty’s’ post-COVID-19 perceptions. The findings reflect that the faculty prioritized to focus on immediate online instructional matters in the wake of the pandemic with a lack of emphasis on global practices for online learning. Experienced and young faculty reported disparities in striking a balance between pedagogy and technology. Moreover, despite the limitations, the experience itself prepared the faculty for a blended learning approach and increased their awareness of global and future challenges. The implications were reported based on the findings.

This study aims to explore employers’ attitudes and perceptions in hiring and retaining people with physical disabilities. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with eleven human resource managers working in the private sector of Islamabad. Transcripts comprising participants verbatim were analyzed using Thematic Analysis and a descriptive approach. The reliability of the research was established by ensuring credibility, dependability, transferability, and conformability. Inter-rater reliability was found satisfactory. Findings show six major themes namely employers’ attitude, policy awareness and implementation, perceived concerns and challenges by employers, barriers to employment of people with disability (PWD), provision of reasonable accommodation and, career development and retention policy. The research findings indicate that human resource managers generally have socially desirable, favorable attitudes towards the employment of people with disabilities. However, in-depth exploration indicated either attitudinal barriers or apprehensions to hire PWD due to the lack of resources and limitations in policy implementation. Findings show that small and medium-sized organizations face greater challenges in hiring and retaining PWD. Further, a dire need for governmental and legislative support to the employers is highlighted. Implications of research findings have been discussed.