Editorial: Human resource management in the COVID-19 era: new insights and management opportunities

Today’s human resource management professionals need to deploy a complex set of competencies to deal with different issues that are threatening organizations’ performance and even their survival. The COVID-19 pandemic set off a situation that involves a rupture with the past, which has made HRM’s fragility and challenges—some of which already existed—emerge in an explosive and faster way. The current scenario can be defined in terms of ambiguity, uncertainty, precariousness, instability, and new possibilities as it never has been before. Changes in traditional work processes and conditions have shaped an environment in which human resource management (HRM) is called on to face issues that range from changes in the way people work and interact in the workplace (rapid digitization, remote and virtual environments, groups, and team working) to the deep representations and meanings related to work, to foster productivity, innovation, and wellbeing. HRM has recently been required to face important challenges because of the increasing complexity of organizations and the multidimensional nature of work. Despite all the advances that have been made in HRM studies, the social and economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis put researchers and practitioners in a position in which they face a lack of framework, procedures, and tools to guide and support professionals’ adjustment to all the drastic changes that happened in the work and social environment. A broader and more interdisciplinary view is required to understand and take on HRM’s changes and challenges and to find new and integrated ways through which HRM can safeguard wellbeing, innovation, and productivity in organizations.