We need a hero: HR and the ‘next normal’ workplace

Abstract

During the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, employees worked from home in record numbers and enjoyed extraordinarily high levels of autonomy. Now, as employers reopen their doors, we can build on those gains to create better workplaces than the ones we left behind. HR has a window of opportunity in which to develop psychologically safe workplaces, trust-based employment relationships and socially connected workforces. But progress towards better workplaces hangs on a few critical adjustments in the HR researcher–practitioner relationship. HR researchers must work with HR practitioners to identify organization-level interventions and examine their simultaneous influence on employee and employer outcomes. HR practitioners must create sandboxes where those interventions can be pilot tested, and resist their instinctive urge to establish formalised structures and develop monitoring systems.