Leadership through empowerment of human resources during the pandemics
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Žmogiškieji ištekliai; Lyderystė; Įgalinimas; Pandemija; COVID-19; Human Resources; Leadership; Empowerment; Pandemic; COVID 19.
ENThe world has never before experienced such a dramatic impact on human capital; and the consequences of the COVID-19 on economic, social and political indicators – although still not fully known and difficult to forecast, but according to many authors and international organisations will certainly be dramatic (Tawil, 2020; UNESCO, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has created a particularly challenging environment for human resource management (HRM) – with managers having to quickly venture into the “unknown unknowns” as they strive to help their workforce adapt to and cope with radical changes occurring in the work and social environment. According to D. Gudelis (2020) the COVID-19 pandemics that has spread all over the world since the beginning of 2020 has posed a grand challenge to the governments of all countries around the world, including Lithuania – they were forced to make decisions on the measures that would help to slow the spread of the virus as well as to take actions to alleviate the negative effects of the enforced restrictions on the economy and people. In Lithuania, having declared a state-level emergency situation on 26 February, 2020, the governance of the pandemics was based on the Law on Civil Protection of the Republic of Lithuania and the State Emergency Situation Management Plan approved in 2010. After a couple of weeks, the decision on announcement of a national quarantine on the entire territory of the Republic of Lithuania was made on the grounds of the Law on the Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases in Humans of the Republic of Lithuania. In the light of the above, the article analyses the leadership through empowerment of human resources and underpins the effectiveness of management.The initial theoretical framework provides the rationale for the concept of leadership during the pandemics; it also includes an analysis of the dimensions and typology of the concept of empowerment and COVID-19: management, policy, remote work and management processes. The article focuses both on the changes in leader’s management styles and decision-making options in the organization where leadership through empowerment of employees during the pandemics plays an important role. Quantitative research on leadership through empowerment in organizations during the pandemics was conducted. The research findings have shown that leaders were fairly well prepared for management of human resources during the pandemics as well as disclosed the trends that the leaders in organizations provide their employees with a possibility to perform challenging work tasks, to make decisions autonomously, to develop their competences, they share information and apply incentive measures that during the challenging times are relevant for workforce. The research has revealed that little attention has been paid to career development opportunities in organizations when working in remote mode. Practical implication of the research findings allows maintaining that the COVID-19 pandemics will have profound social, psychological, physical and technical implications for human resources as they attempt to adjust to their drastically altered work environments. Some of these challenges, undoubtedly, have never been experienced before, i.e., they are unique, and therefore, will require new methods of analysis and new theoretical constructs, however, some other issues employees are currently facing resemble their usual daily work experience. [From the publication]
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