Now, outside of Investment Banking, more generally, I have been impressed by the approach to institutional critique on white privilege, which Prof. Kalwant Bhopal from the University of Birmingham has been influential in sharing. This has inspired me to read the article by Abedi et. al. (2021) where the authors suggest poverty, and in particular Medicaid eligibility, had a strong correlation with the COVID-19 mortality rate in various US states. I was surprised because the health consequences of COVID-19 for those in certain parts of the United States were clear to observe from the article.
Accordingly, for many front-line professions (nursing, ride-hailing, and public sector work) critical race theory is useful in encountering the experience of both black working-class workers and low-income immigrants, particularly caregivers. This is of significant interest to the informed strategies of management through crisis, or what I discovered is referred to by Collings (2021) as “work context” (i.e. hybrid or flexible forms of work).
Collings (2021) cite Wright and McMahon (1992) early on in their paper stating that “They argued that the domain of strategic HRM encompassed ‘the determinants of decisions about HR practices, the composition of human capital resource pools, the specification of the required human resource behaviours, and the effectiveness of these decisions given various business strategies and/or competitive situations'" (Wright and McMahon, 1992, p. 298). Société Générale’s report demonstrates to a degree how important HRM was as a factor during COVID-19’s lockdown, but also how management through crisis is an interdepartmental responsibility, not just that of Human Resources.
As I mentioned earlier in my blog, there is a necessary component called ‘context’, that adds insight into the value of interdepartmental collaboration. Context allows us to see the bigger picture. I am not saying academia seems to misunderstand HR and its function in practice, rather, I am saying context is such a necessary term that I often find it has a plurality of consequences and interpretations in the literature (Johns, 2006) which can be used to critique the conclusion to Collings et. al. (2021) in rhetoric at least, if not in an obscure reality.
References
1. Abedi, V., Olulana, O., Avula, V., Chaudhary, D., Khan, A., Shahjouei, S., Li., J. and Zand, R. (2021) “Racial, economic, and health inequality and COVID-19 infection in the United States”, Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 8(3), pp. 732–42.
2. Collings, D.G., McMackin, J., Nyberg, A.J. and Wright, P.M. (2021) ‘Strategic human resource management and COVID‐19: Emerging challenges and research opportunities’, Journal of Management Studies. Available at: https://doi-org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/10.1111/joms.12695 (Accessed: 19 November 2023)
3. Johns, G. (2006) "The Essential Impact of Context on Organizational Behaviour", The Academy of Management Review, 31(2), pp. 386–408
4. Société Générale Report: Future of Work: ‘Building a new work experience together at Société Générale’, July 2020 – Available at https://www.societegenerale.com/sites/default/files/documents/2020-10/future_of_work_livre_blanc_va.pdf
5. Stuart, M., Spencer, D. A., McLachlan, C. J., Forde, C. (2021) “COVID-19 and the uncertain future of HRM: Furlough, job retention and reform”, Human Resource Management Journal, 31(4), pp. 904-917
----------
This post was written by Alfred Anate Mayaki, a student on the MSc in HRM and was inspired by a Forbes article entitled: "Companies with flexible remote work policies outperform on revenue growth: report"