Besic, Almina

Hirt, Christian

Ilieva, Snezhana

Kerekes, Kinga

Kálmán, Botond Géza

Poór, József

Rahimic, Zijada

Szabó, Katalin

Szeiner, Zsuzsanna

Tóth, Arnold

Zaharie, Monica

Repository of the Academy's Library

   38th EIASM WORKSHOP  ON  STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT “CHALLENGES FOR HRM IN THE NEXT GENERATION” April 27 - 28, 2023   INTERNATIONAL CHAIRPERSONS Professor Emeritus Michael SEGALLA - HEC Paris, France Professor Bruno STAFFELBACH - University of Lucerne, Switzerland LOCAL CHAIRPERSON Professor Daniela PAUKNEROVA - Faculty of Business Administration - Prague University of Economics and Business   https://www.eiasm.org/UserFiles/SHRM%20Workshop%20Program%20-%20Preliminary%202023%2018avril.pdfFriday, April 28, 2023   8:40 – 9:10 CHANGES IN HRM FOLLOWING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC – RESEARCH IN SIX CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN (CEE) COUNTRIES JÓZSEF POÓR, ALMINA BESIC, CHRISTIAN HIRT, BOTOND GÉZA KÁLMÁN, ARNOLD TÓTH, ZSUZSANNA SZEINER, KATALIN SZABÓ, KINGA KEREKES AND MONICA ZAHARIE, ZIJADA RAHIMIC, AND SNEZHANA ILIEVA 09:10 – 09:40 LEADERSHIP STYLES AND JOB-RELATED LEARNING IN THE SWISS ARMED FORCES: PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY AS A MEDIATOR MARTINA MORARD  09:40 – 10:10 EXPLORING POSSIBILITIES: NATURE AS ENVIRONMENT, FRIEND, AND BOOSTER OF EMPLOYEE’S WELL-BEING ADAM TABORSKY 10:10 – 10:40 Coffee break 10:40 – 11:10 SPECIFICS OF GENERATION Z ENTRY INTO THE CZECH LABOR MARKET EVA HOVOŘÁKOVÁ  11:10 - 11:40 WORKPLACE INTERVENTIONS FOR LEADERS IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY – A REALIST EVALUATION JUDITH SCHMITT 11:40 – 12:10 HOW TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS LEGITIMIZE AI FOR TALENT ACQUISITION IN THE FACE OF LEGAL OPAQUENESS AND AUDIENCE’S TRUST CONCERNS CHRISTINA FUCHS, REICHEL ASTRID 12:10 – 13:30 Lunch 1Poór_Szeiner_Besic_Hirt_Kálmán_Tóth_Szabó_Kerekes_Zaharie_Rahimic_Ilieva_2023Changes in HRM following the Covid-19 pandemic – research in six Central and Eastern European (CEE) countriesJózsef Poór – Zsuzsanna Szeiner (J.Selye University)Almina Besic (Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria), Christian Hirt (University of Graz, Graz, Austria), Botond Géza Kálmán (Kodolányi János University, Hungary), Arnold Tóth (Budapest Business School), Katalin Szabó (MATE, Hungary), Kinga Kerekes and Monica Zaharie (Babes BolyaiUniversity (BBU), Cluj, Romania), Zijada Rahimic (University Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Snezhana Ilieva (Sofia University)Prague, April 27-28, 20231 Changes in HRM following the Covid-19 pandemic – research in six Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries  József Poór (UJS, Slovakia), Almina Besic (Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria), Christian Hirt  (University of Graz, Graz, Austria) Botond Géza Kálmán (Kodolányi János University, Budapest, Hungary), Arnold Tóth (Budapest Business School, Hungary), Zsuzsanna Szeiner (UJS, Slovakia), Katalin Szabó (MATE, Hungary), Kinga Kerekes and Monica Zaharie (Babes Bolyai University (BBU), Cluj, Romania) Zijada Rahimic (University Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Snezhana Ilieva (Sofia University)  Introduction  Following the COVID-19 pandemic, economically and socially throughout 2020-2022, there have been massive changes in the lives of individuals and organizations. After the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, various governments acted almost immediately with large scale closures and social distancing (IMF, 2021). Within the European Union €, governments have responded to the with unprecedented speed and scale, providing financial support to member states. The pandemic has greatly affected the workforce. Since the crisis of 2008-2009, employment has steadily increased throughout the world (BLS, 2018; Faroof & Kugler, 2015), and this has also been the case in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region (ILO, 2018). According to the International Labour Organization (ILO, 2021), out of 3.5 billion workers globally, 255 million people lost their jobs in 2020, the first year of the, taking into account layoffs and hours lost. During the pandemic, however, companies relied on closures, furlough or remote work. In addition, across many companies Human Resource departments suddenly faced a change in their role and responsibility (see e.g. Carnevale & Hatak, 2020; Juhász et al. 2020)  In this study, we focus on the changes in human resources resulting from the pandemic, across six countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), namely Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.  This region is an interesting context for our study, due to the different economic characteristics and different responses to the Covid-19 pandemic (see e.g. Karoliny & Poór, 2019; Kazlauskaitė et al., 2013; Poor & Plesoianu, 2010; Stachova et al., 2020; Vatchkova, 1997).  While in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, HRM has slowly developed since the transition from a planned to a market economy in the 1990s, in Bosnia and Herzegovina this transition is still ongoing, rendering HR still rather operational. In Austria, however, HR has steadily grown more strategic, impacting the reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic (see Hirt et al., 2022; Viehauser & Tengel, 2020; Varga, 2020). This short paper proceeds by outlining our method, as well as initial findings from our study.       Research Method In our study, we used the results of the CoronaHR project, initiated by Hungary, in which the authors of this paper also collaborate. We collected data through a questionnaire-based survey carried out in all six countries covered by the research. The questionnaire was first edited in Hungarian, using a questionnaire validated by two rounds (round 1 in June-July     , 2020, round 2 in August-November, 2020) of previous surveys carried out in Hungary in the first year of 2 the pandemic (Poór et al., 2021 and 2022). Based on the Hungarian version, the authors translated the questionnaire in English and in all the languages of the countries examined.      Our questionnaire includes the following major groups of questions: ● the effects of the Covid-19      crisis on the economies of the countries studied and on the organization under review, ● general and HR crisis management measures most characteristic of the audited entity, ● changes/changes initiated in the HR field in the audited organization      as a result of the crisis, ● the opportunities created by the Covid-19      crisis at the examined organization      and its HR     , ● jobs and competences positively and/or negatively affected by the effects of the crisis, ● characteristics of the organization      under consideration, the respondent HR area and the responding person. The questions      could be answered on a 4- or 6-point ordinal scale. The even number of options forced the respondents to commit, but also gave them the opportunity to express their level of commitment in a differentiated manner (Asún et al., 2016).  The data collection was carried out using a questionnaire that can be completed both online and in electronic document form. The respondent organizations      were selected by the variant of the respondent-driven time-space sampling method (Heckathorn, 1997; Parsons et al., 2008) adapted to the current research. The sample obtained by the method used is of course not representative, but due to the large number (n= 1048) and diverse nature of the respondents, it is also suitable for drawing various      conclusions. We also emphasize      the international nature of our sample, which makes it suitable for collecting and formulating regional experiences. The collected data was processed after cleaning using statistical methods, using IBM-SPSS Statistics 28, MS-Excel 365 and Jamovi Desktop 2.3.18.0 software (Poór et al., 2021). Hypotheses We formulated seven hypotheses after reviewing the literature, all of which are related to the role of HR:  Hypothesis Text H1 The amount of HR work, the expectations for HR work and the importance of professional HR work increased during the pandemic. H2 Typical crisis management measures in the field of HR focus on headcount management / manpower needs (downsizing, redundancies, interim staff reduction, reduction in manpower demand through automation and training) and new working time management (reduction of working hours, authorization of teleworking, replacement plans). 3 H3 The most typical crisis management measures in HR depend on the size of the organization.  H4 The most typical crisis management measures in the field of HR show a relationship with the ownership of the organization. H5 Retaining key people and talent have become particularly important for organizations, with unique, hard-to-copy organizational knowledge and expertise seen as a way out of the crisis, and human resources seen as of strategic importance. H6 Most organizations see the crisis as an opportunity to bring about positive change, and they see potential growth in many areas of HR because of the crisis. The areas of remote work, occupational health and safety, and internal communication are growing in importance.  H7 A paradigm shift in the field of HR that began nearly thirty years ago treats the employee holistically, as a human being. However, this direction has developed faster in the field of theory than in practice. The global crisis caused by the pandemic significantly accelerated the practical application of the new theory. Source: Authors’ own research The hypotheses can be divided into 3 groups. In the first group, there is a hypothesis, a general assumption that pandemics have increased the amount of HR work and HR-related expectations. The second group includes the hypotheses (H#2, H#3, H#4), according to which the size, ownership structure, nationality, and the existence of the HR department of the responding organizations influence the measures taken in crisis management. The third group is related to the global changes currently underway in HR (H#5, H#6 and H#7). They see crisis management not as a constraint, but as an opportunity so that the paradigm shifts currently taking place in HR – the essence of which is the appreciation of the role of human capital, the retention of knowledge capital, and talent – can be realized      in practice as soon as possible.  Results Initial analyses show that the volume of HR work and the increase in HR-related expectations can be observed in all countries, although not to the same extent. While this is most visible       in Austria, it is the least the case in Slovakia. We found a significant relationship between the existence of an HR department and the increase in the importance of professional HR activities. We showed that among the responses to the pandemic, workplace health protection and remote work were the two most common HR responses in all countries. At the same time, the 4 proportion of these measures among all measures differed from country to country, so the role of citizenship was partially verified here as well. However, there was a significant difference in the nature of HR measures according to the size of the organization     . In larger companies      , remote work and workplace health protection were the most typical HR responses, while small companies used the      frequently used cost reductions and headcount freezes more often. We also examined the role of ownership composition. From this, we found that the above-mentioned measures are mostly applied to subsidiaries of foreign companies, while the development of replacement plans is more typical of state-owned companies. In the third hypothesis group, it could be established that the perception of the importance of talent retaining and knowledge capital is strongly influenced by the country in which the responding companies located. At the same time, we showed that for more than half of the responding companies, the crisis is also an opportunity, and this ratio also characterizes      each country separately. We also experienced a significant increase in the area of human centric measures’ applications rate, which is considered modern, i.e., the crisis accelerated the practical application of new theoretical knowledge in the examined geographical region.  Summary Our study was Central European regional research covering six countries on the topic of how crises affect human resource management in various organizations. Our results prove that the size of the country and the company play a decisive role in crisis management, and the application of certain measures depends on the ownership structure, but that the responses are also highly context dependent. It is a positive result that the majority of respondents see the crisis as an opportunity for further development in the area of HR and that the crisis also strengthens the practical application strategic HR models.. Overall, HR is transforming due the pandemic, albeit not at the same speed across the region.  Acknowledgment  The Authors gratefully acknowledge that this contribution is under the VEGA grant 1/0688/21.  Literature 1. Asún, R. A., Rdz-Navarro, K., & Alvarado, J. M. (2016). Developing Multidimensional Likert Scales Using Item Factor Analysis: The Case of Four-point Items. 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Changes in HRM following the Covid-19 pandemic – research in six Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries

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Changes in HRM following the Covid-19 pandemic – research in six Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries

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