Industrial Law and Relations

Course ID: HRM380

Section: 02
Semester: Summer23

Submitted by:
Name: Md. Rafshan Jany.
ID: 1831199.

Submitted to:
Effat Binte Kabir
Department of Human Resource Management
School of Business

Date of submission: 23.07.2023

Industrial Relations in the Post-Covid Era:
Analyze the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic
on industrial relations, examining changes in
work arrangements, labor trends, and the role of
unions and employers in navigating the post
pandemic landscape.

Abstract
The impact of Covid-19 was huge throughout the whole world. Conventional methods
were useless at that time and some changes needed to happen. Industrial relationship is one of
them. As the pandemic hit and workplaces were shut down, one can say the base of IR was
missing. In this study we will try to find out about the changes and trends happened in post covid
era in IR.

Introduction
The post covid era have seen some significant changes in IR due to global economic
changes as well as the changes happened in work patterns. The most common and widely known
model introduced in covid period was the remote/ hybrid work model. This model mostly
emphasized on the working schedule for IR. The pandemic was a health threat to all. As a result,
workplace safety, health measures, workers safety these matters came forward with high
concerns. The labor market was at an unstable state. New job opportunities came forward as
some industries had to shut down due to the economical backlash of covid-19. As per the unions
and labor laws and regulation saw some changes during the pandemic. Lastly the dimension of
IR changed with the resilience and adaptability of the businesses and workforce.
In this world, every company needs to stay competitive with the rapid changes of the world.
Covid-19 was a huge uncontrollable factor that shook the world and its economy. In our world,
everything is constantly evolving. Industrial relationship is nothing different. The landscape
changed drastically and will change overtime.
Literature review
Remote work: commonly referred as working from home or remote working. Remote
work is a type of employment that allows staff members to carry out their jobs outside from the
typical workplace. Many companies switched to remote work during the pandemic in order to
protect employees from layoffs and follow lockdown regulations at the same time.
Benefits of Remote Employment:
More flexibility: Working from home gives employees the freedom to maintain a better work-
life balance.
Reduced commuting: Working remotely reduces the necessity for daily commuting, saving both
employees and companies time and money.
Companies have access to a larger talent pool since they can hire workers from various regions
of the world.
Savings: Businesses' overhead expenditures, such as those for office space and utilities, can be
decreased as a result of remote employment.
Hybrid Work Models: A hybrid work model combines both, conventional in-office
work with remote work. The time that employees spend working remotely and on-site visits to
the office varies and depends on their need. Businesses realized that not all jobs need on-site
appearance, and employees like the versatility, leading to the rise in popularity of this strategy.
characteristics of hybrid work models:
Rotational Schedules: According to a fixed timetable, employees may work in the office some
days and remotely on other days.
Task-Based Flexibility: When activities can be successfully accomplished outside of the office,
hybrid work enables workers to work remotely and, when necessary, attend physical meetings or
collaborative sessions.
Employee Choice: Some businesses let employees to select the type of work environment they
desire.
Workplace safety and health measures: The covid-19 pandemic really brought out the
topic of workplace safety with health measures of employee as the top priority for organizations.
The issue of workplace safety and health measures were very much the main demand for
workers’ other than fair pay. Some key points are mentioned bellow.

 Enhanced cleaning and sanitization: Companies now brought into the system of proper
and regular cleaning with sanitization of workplace with the employees.
  Social distancing measures: The concept of social distancing was obsolete before covid-
19. Before the pandemic employees were not given proper working space to operate
properly in some organization.
 Training and education: Organizations had to train their employees and educate them
about an epidemic. Employers needed to guide the employees to how they should behave
on a situation like covid-19.
 Vaccination support: Some organizations had to give vaccine support to their employees
so that they could monitor the epidemic situation within the organization.

Labor Laws and Regulations: The labor laws and regulations were slightly changed in
favor of employees. As in the time of pandemic any employee can get sick easily. The
organizations had to look after the wellbeing of employees as well as they had to give proper
support to an employee is he/she gets sick. The are some labor laws and regulations introduced
or adopted during the covid-19 era mentioned bellow.

 Paid sick leave and emergency leave: Employees were able to take sick leaves as the
virus was too contagious. Employees were also granted payment during the time of sick
leave.
 Flexible work arrangements: Employees were not bound by time in post covid era.
Government regulated the working hours to minimize the virus spread.
 Job Protection: Government had to introduce job protection service to control
unemployment as well as the living standard for employees had to looked upon as the
whole world was on a recession period.
 Support for unemployed workers: Many governments had to introduce financial support
for unemployed workers. The situation was dire on its own so the unemployed had to be
looked upon.
Union and employer relations: union and employer relations improved in the time of covid.
The employer association and the labor union had to work together to get out of the pandemic
situation. Some of the union and employer relations are mentioned bellow.

 Collaborative problem solutions: The employers association and the labor union had to
work in a collaboration that both of the parties can face the economic recession.
 Communication and transparency: In the time of pandemic the communication between
the employers and employee was a huge importance. In a time like this transparency and
communication comes in handy.
 Job retention and layoff mitigation: In the time of pandemic the unions emphasized on
employee retention rather than layoffs. A subtle effort to mitigate the economic
downturns.
 Digital Transformation: The most effected side of business in the covid era was digital
transformation. Organizations had to implement new digital sectors to keep up with the trend. A
few transformations are mentioned bellow.

 Remote work solutions: In the pandemic time organizations had to implement remote
work system. These remote work stations faced a lot of problems and these problems was
hard to fix as the employees were not in premises of the organization. Organizations had
to set up remote work solution team to solve these types of problems.
 E-commerce and online sale: Organizations had to move toward the market of E-
commerce and online sale as the traditional market places were shut down.
 Data analytics and business intelligence: Before the pandemic hit, the world of data
analytics and intelligence was mostly manual. The introduction of open AI in the post
covid era is really changing the dimension of data analytics and intelligence. The
automation system AI is providing is very accurate and easy to use. As a result, every
organization in implementing AI in their work.
 Virtual events and webinars: The concept of virtual events and webinars were very
questionable before the pandemic. The post pandemic era showed the whole world the
convenience of virtual meeting and webinars.
 Cybersecurity and data protection: In this modern world data is very important. To keep
the company data safe and secure, companies had to invest on cybersecurity. As there is
no alternate to digitalization. The importance of cybersecurity and data protection has to
be one of the main priorities.

Conclusion
In this world everything is constantly changing and evolving. Work arrangement, labor
trends and union and employer negotiation relationship are nothing different. In the context of
covid-19 the trends and traits changed drastically. As the whole world and its economy got hit by
a huge recession. Employers, employee and the unions had to come forward together to fight for
the situation to get better. Many new ideas came forward and implemented on a large scale that
haven’t been even thought by anyone ever. As an act of ‘desperate time calls for desperate
measures’. The landscape changed for good. As the new work models and trends will be forever
used by the generations to come.
Reference
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
359056200_REMOTE_WORK_AND_HYBRID_WORK_ORGANIZATIONS
https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/supporting-people-and-companies-to-
deal-with-the-covid-19-virus-options-for-an-immediate-employment-and-social-policy-
response-d33dffe6/