Unmasking Reflexivity in HR Managers During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy

Abstract

This paper explores how some Italian HR managers narrate the changes imposed by the COVID-19 threat in the workplace. Events since December 2019 have presented exceptional circumstances to which HR managers have reacted in very different ways. This study explored how HR managers came to introduce organizational changes aimed at coping with the emergency, as well as how employees were involved in those organizational changes. The article is based on a thematic analysis of some interviews with Italian HR managers whose companies decided to switch working from home on a massive scale. We wanted to offer some reflections on the actions taken by a few HR managers and Italian companies to keep working at a time when most workers were forced to respect the lockdown.

Don’t Call It Smart: Working From Home During the Pandemic Crisis

“…This sudden acceleration towards a much more intense use of remote work, although forms of smart working were being experimented in the Italian working context, has caught organizations and workers unprepared to manage this passage, considering the scarcity of alternative managerial models, guidelines, and policies recommending how to best move from the emergency response of the labor market to the diffusion of the virus, to a medium-long term solution of good integration of remote working into conventional work arrangements. Basically, what millions of Italian workers have witnessed and experienced in the last 16 months has been working from home or working remotely, without the necessary tools that configure a job that can be defined remotely or smart ( Ripamonti et al, 2020 ). Furthermore, working from home has meant for many workers, especially in periods of isolation or partial confinement, to face a complete overlap between work and private life, and the acceptance of the loss of their role boundaries to cope with health emergency ( Duffy, 2020 ).…”

Responding To The Clarion Call Of COVID-19: A study of impact of HR function and employee engagement on post-crisis organisation recoverability

“…While organizations are often resistant to leave traditional routines, crisis often force them to do so (Peters et al, 2011). As pointed out by (Ripamonti and Benozzo, 2020), researchers working in the area of critical reflexivity (Cunliffe, 2003;Alvesson, 2003;Ripamonti and Galuppo, 2016;Ripamonti and Scaratti, 2018) and (Caetano, 2015) have emphasized the role of organizational learning. Creating learning systems for HR thus becomes imperative because not only does the HR need to find out where it went wrong but also needs to correct it (single loop learning) and enhance systems so as to prevent these mistakes (double loop learning).…”

Managing the Crisis: How COVID‐19 Demands Interact with Agile Project Management in Predicting Employee Exhaustion

“…Furthermore, project team members may need to care for family members who are ill or may even contract the virus themselves, resulting in deviations from project plans or missed deadlines. (7) Second, project employees might experience additional demands in their 'day-to-day workflow': on a daily basis, the reduction of synchronous working hours in teams (Ripamonti, 2020) may pose additional demands on individuals when waiting for other team members to act or respond. Additionally, daily routines, such as daily office meetings, might have been altered by the spatial separation of colleagues (Baert, 2020).…”