Industry trends during COVID and Post-COVID

According to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy 27 million youth in the age group of 20-30 years lost their jobs in April 2020 following a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Further, 33 million men and women in their 30s lost jobs in April, out of which 86% of the job losses were among men, it said.

In addition to the job losses, pay-cuts, and furloughs, the other trends Industries are adapting are:

• Deferring any incentives, appraisals to employees.
• Laying off roles where there are repetitive jobs.
• Performance-based layoffs due to skill or will issues.
• Layoffs due to the non-adaptability of employees to post- COVID scenario.
• Layoffs considering resources on the bench even for 15 days as a burden for the organization and shedding overheads.
• Decrease of numbers in Support functions.
• Laying Off Senior People in Senior positions in the age group of 50+ yrs addressing cost and as perceived by the Industry – limitation in the utilization of such resources due to mobility, multitasking, adaptability, rigidity, etc.,
• Promoting Junior resources to Senior roles due to resource availability at a lesser cost, maximum utilization, flexibility, more accommodative, etc..,
• Hiring resources across geographies due to Work from home model.
• Doubling the expectations in terms of deliverable’s and accountability.
• Transferring Permanent resources to contractual employment – this will reduce the overhead cost for the Companies and retrenchment cost based on future Industry uncertainties that can be well accommodated at lesser cost and no brand defamation.
• Out-placement of retrenched employees.
• Engaging skilled white – collared resources on assignment/ day/ month basis is the new trend.
• Hiring experienced resources at the cost of an entry-level resource.
• Deferring all Campus hiring offers to infinity.
• Expanding the job description of new and existing employees.
• Measuring performance only on results delivered and not on the engagement time.
• Work from home, not limiting working hours to 9, 10, 11, or 12 hours.
• Major Companies adopting to Work from home trend due to the cost saved on infrastructure.
• Expecting Industry ready resources minimizing training time and training cost.
• Human Resource engaging more in virtual employee engagement platforms.
• Adopting Project-based engagement through contractual hiring.
• Building effective virtual platforms of communication to make the Work from home model better.
• Reducing trial time and adaptability time of any new resource joining the organization.
• Transfer of employees to the most challenging locations or work area.
• Bidding with extremely Competitive rates to gain business and sustain.
• Keeping only the primary and lean benefits to the employees active.
• Emphasizing on survival than growth.

Every aspect of the industry has undergone substantial modifications. Should it be called New -Normal or New World? But change always is initiated, implemented, adapted, and better successful in chaos.