Human Resources Management's Predominant Role in the COVID-19 Crisis: Making a Difference via Flexi-Time and Flexi-Space Working Solutions

Introduction

As the Covid-19 caught us off guard in a business-as-usual environment, companies began to look for new ways to continue their operations. Therefore, flexible working has become the most common practice in the context of the pandemic (Glaude et al., 2020) and has begun to attract the attention it deserves. The flexible working methods such as reduced hours, home office design, and teleworking were supported and encouraged as new ways of working in the new normal (CIPD, 2020; ILO, 2020). As a result, organizations had to move from a traditional work arrangement to a system of remote working as part of their plans to maintain business operations; they opted for working from home to prevent illnesses and protect employees (Gössling et al., 2020; Işık & Güney, 2020; Kraus et al., 2020). Although working from home is unsuitable for some job profiles and organizations, it became a crucial solution to ensure business continuity and combat the health threats during the Covid 19 epidemic (Messenger, 2020). Flexible working practices, in general, is considered a solution to increase the work-life quality, prioritize sustainable organizational operations, increase mobility and adaptability according to changing global conditions like a crisis, war, epidemic, and cyber-attack (Ateş & Çöpoğlu, 2015).

As shared in Time Magazine in February 2020, “The coronavirus outbreak has become the world's largest work-from-home experiment,” and the virus even provided the opportunity to test the work-from-home theory on an enormous scale. In their study, Barrero, Bloom, and Davis (2020) questioned why work from home will be permanent through the survey conducted with 15,000 people living in the United States and reported that working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic was evaluated more productive than pre-pandemic era work in the office. In addition, Gartner's research with 127 company leaders representing human resources, legal, compliance, and finance functions revealed that 80% of company leaders plan to allow employees to work remotely at least for certain times after the epidemic, and 47% of them say that they will allow their employees work from home full-time (Gartner, 2020).

Flexible working's individual, environmental and economic impacts vary depending on how well organized and managed. The work-private life conflict may increase with flexible working (Torlak & Işık, 2021), new technologies demanding additional time from employees may increase techno-stress by harming psychological well-being, and working alone may cause isolation (Carnavale & Hatak, 2020). Hence, analyzing and maximizing the fit between the flexible structure and employee characteristics would support psychological well-being during flexible working (Işık, Yenisey, & Kantur, 2021). According to recent studies, the Covid-19 pandemic has shaken the business world and affected the motivation, commitment, performance, business continuity, and flow of organizations and employees (Caliguri et al., 2020; Carnevale & Hatak, 2020; Palumbo, 2020; Vnouckova, 2020). Job insecurity and increased work and family stress became more prominent, jeopardizing employees' engagement and well-being (Kumar, 2021). Increased job insecurity turned out to be one of the major topics in the pandemic phase, especially while working away from the workplace. Sudden changes and transitions to remote work also created stress and anxiety in employees (Como, Hambley & Domene, 2021).