The challenge and opportunity that multinational companies have to face during COVID-19

Introduction

Situations of companies around the world are struggling under the destructive impact due to the sudden outbreak of COVID-19. Apart from financial and customer-related issues, internal employee management is one of the biggest challenges for companies during COVID-19. According to a pulse survey conducted by Reward Gateway, companies implied that managing employee morale and altering to a remote-work culture are the two biggest challenges during COVID-19 pandemic (Hilton ,2020). Furthermore, due to the sudden hit of the epidemic, numerous companies emphasize that human resource management plays an essential role in determining business continuity. 88% of company leaders reported that the outbreak of COVID-19 allow them to realize the importance of HR strategies (Syed, 2020). Therefore, this report will firstly discuss about 3 issues caused by COVID-19 which are remote culture working, new management decision and program, and the influence of external and internal environment. Employee and management challenges and implementations will be included and were supported by related theories as well as examples. Lastly, opportunities for diverse workforce in multi-national companies will be demonstrated in the end to provide valuable insights for future career development.

Influence of internal and external environment

The damage of the COVID-19 not only effect internal environment of the MNCs but also external environment. Internal can be defined as the element that exists in the organization, for instance, management, employees and corporate culture (CliffsNote, 2020). Mageplaza (2020) states that external environment can be defined as the factor not control by the company such as consumers, economic, political and so forth. In internal environment aspect, the workforce has been influenced a lot by COVID-19. Morrison (2020) mentions that working from home is the most obvious change in the work force, it makes more organizations operate, and most companies can adopt and work in short period. However, working from home also bring several problems not only to company but also to the individuals. Some small organizations need to rely heavily on the corporate data which is difficult for them to solve problems promptly and flexibly such as law firms (Morrison, 2020). For employees, excessed work, time management and collaborate with colleagues are the problem working from home and these are hard to be solved (Stephen, 2020). ILO (2020) argued that COVID-19 cloud lead to working poverty and inequality become more serious, moreover; the team are often full of complaints and mistrust, the result is hard to maintain the productive. Adams-Prassl, Boneva, Goline and Rauh (2020) state that COVID-19 may influence the income of the employee and the profit of the company, especially self-employed companies which make the gain depends on the work assignment and project, for example, there are over 75% self-employed companies reported that the profit is decreasing weekly. Although the income of the employee decrease, they may not lose their job, Morrison (2020) argues that the company prefer cutting the cost to save the number of employees, not only by decline the salary but also reduce the quality of product. In terms of external environment, COVID-19 had bring about severe impact on many different aspects. The external environment will be discussed based on four aspects: economic, policy and legislation, social, and technology Regarding to the economy aspect, global economy is expected to fall by between 13% and 32% in 2020 due to the disruption of COVID-19 pandemic according to the World Trade (World trade organization, 2020). In terms of the economy forecast in different regions, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation anticipated that the economic growth will drop 2.7 percent in 2020 (Evans and Acosta, 2020). Regarding to the Latin America economy, Mexico’s economy is expected to occur 7 percent constraints in Mexico, 5.2 percent for Brazil, and 6 percent for Argentina (Evans and Acosta, 2020). In terms of policy and legislation, many countries had established strict social distancing and stay-at-home orders to protect the safety of citizens and try to impede the growing number of infection cases. Furthermore, governments had also provided easier policy to support business. For instance, Australia government allow companies that are affected by pandemic to postpone tax payment up to 4 months without incurring interest or penalties (OECD, 2020). In addition, Brazil government had suspended tax for bank loans for three months to ease the burden of individuals as well as businesses (OECD, 2020). Apart from this, global import and export are strictly restricted and controlled during COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, India government had stop signing new export contracts due to nationwide lockdown (ITC, 2020). Multinational companies should be aware of the changes in national policies which may significantly affect operations in different countries. In the social aspect, customers are shifting to digital lifestyle due to social distancing and stay-at-home policies. Kunst (2020) reported that 52% of consumers in United states had shop online more during the pandemic. Additionally, numerous national events and annual religious activities are postponed since most of the events are usually participated by a large population. For instance, the Summer Olympics that is planned to be held in Tokyo this year had been postponed until 2021 (Lang at el, 2020). Upcoming religious activities such as Easter in Rome and Passover in the Hindu festival are now in doubt due to the pandemic (Sherwood, 2020). In terms of the technology aspect, most companies had transferred their business activities online. According to Xiao and Fang (2020), remoted technologies such as Zoom online conference, robot delivery, and virtual private network are key technologies that assist companies to overcome the challenges of remoting working during COVID-19 pandemic. 

Remote-working culture

Due to the high infection and toll rate, many countries had restricted citizens to stay at home regardless of work, which require employees to adapt remoted work culture. In terms of employee, there are mainly four types of workforce in the labor market, which are full- time employee, part-time employee, temporary employee and seasonal employee (Valerie, 2018). The difference between each workforce is the length of working time and payment calculation. Full time employees work 30-40 hours per week and part-time workers often work less than 30 hours which cannot receive non-monetary employee benefits from the company. Temporary workers are hired for specific program within a limit time length. The payment is occurred after the program or project is finished. Seasonal employees can be defined as employees that are hired during the peak seasons.

The number of workers is increasing due to the outbreak of COVID-19. It is stated that there were over 7 million people working remotely after the pandemic (Wong, 2020). Savina (2020) states that remote working could increase employee job satisfaction as well as generating more profit by saving the cost such as the fee of transportation and office supplier purchase. However, working from home also bring about several negative influence on the company which will be discussed below.

In terms of national aspect, governments are struggling to adopt the new remote working structure by facing technology problems and security concerns. With more and more government workers shifting to remote working mode, it is critical that governments provided sufficient hardware such as computers and laptops as well as software such as virtual conferencing equipment to ensure working quality (Freed and Johnston, 2020). In addition, governments should also consider how to maintain services such as 311 hotlines that requires employees to answer calls from citizens at home (Freed and Johnston, 2020). It is vital that governments develop comprehensive policies, sufficient technology infrastructure, and employee service script to ensure the quality and continuity of government service. Furthermore, private virtual network and device security should be taken into consideration to avoid classified documents leakage. In business aspect, it can be difficult to maintain a good communication, because the conveyed information may be limited through remoted working mode and different time zones could also be seen as a barrier in communication (Lucidchart, 2020). For example, it is not convenient to hold a regular meeting between China and America due to time zone. Moreover, security is another problem since remoted workers tend to use personal computer for saving some secret information (Lucidchart, 2020). Researches show that secret company data have a relatively high possibility to be stolen. Lucidchart (2020) also mentions that is hard to create a working culture. Although working from home allow employees to create a flexible working schedule, the sense of belonging may decline due to the decreasing opportunities of collaboration with coworkers. Thus, the adoption of remote work culture is widely perceived as a challenging task. Regarding to individual aspect, Pinola (2020) argues that the working hour of remote workers may increase, because it is difficult to separate the working time and resting time. The loneliness may also be a problem if employees live alone (Bell, 2015). Furthermore, with isolated working environment and sudden change in working style, employees are reported to occur several psychological issues such as anxiety, stress, burnout, procrastinate, and domestic violence (Lamp, 2020). If mental health problems are not dealt immediately, it may lead to physical health issues which will negatively affect productivity. To cope with this problem, it is vital for managers to communicate the importance of job and set impactful goal for employees to reduce anxiety and confusion. Moreover, HR managers can offer digital therapy or Caring program to monitor employees’ mental and physical condition to provide immediate support.

New management and program

In such depressing crisis, it is substantially important for managers to provide benefits that achieve the expectations of employees. According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory, McLeod (2020) argues that it divides the expectation of people into 5 levels which are physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Managers can derive different strategies to meet the expectation of employees in different levels according to this theory.

During this crisis, leave and sick pay, employee safety and morale, and action act are three aspects that employees care the most. Many companies had set different reward system to achieve the expectation of workers. For example, Hormel Foods, a food company in America, announced a special cash bonus for employees which provide 300 dollars for full-time employees and 150 dollars for part-time workers. Furthermore, Hormel Foods had adjusted the CARE program for employees by providing extra paid sick leave, shortening the waiting time of the application process, and requirements for applying for some specific benefits (IW staff, 2020). IW staff (2020) also states that PepsiCo had also take proactive actions in meeting employees’ expectation. Firstly, PepsiCo asked workers to quarantine for 14 days to ensure their health with 100% paid that will not decrease the credit for leaves. Secondly, if schools or day care centers are closed because of COVID-19 and employees have to stay home in order to take care of their children, PepsiCo provides over half of the salary for them for up to 12 weeks. In addition, employees can receive a COVID-19 test for free. According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory, the companies mentioned in the examples had taken action in satisfying employees’ needs in the physiological and safety level.

Apart from satisfying physiological and safety level, it is important for managers and HR leaders to fulfill the expectation of employees in the self-actualization level in work. Wiles (2020) states that 91 percent of the HR leaders in a study mentioned that the biggest challenges of implementing ‘work from home’ arrangement is the adaptation of new working culture for employees. As mentioned before, employees may receive less information from the organizational channel when working remotely compared to working with collogues in the workplace. This problem may cause employees to have a lack of information in completing their jobs which generate stress and negative feelings. Furthermore, employees facing this problem will turn to distributive network for information needs (Wiles, 2020). Hence, it is vital for managers and HR leaders to develop a two-way communication and constantly support employees with sufficient information and guidelines. For example, Twitter’s update remote working policy includes assisting employees to set up their home offices and sufficient guides to make working from home transition easier and more comfortable (MacKenzie, 2020). Furthermore, empowering employees may be an effective way to satisfy employees. Aron McEwan, Vice President of Gartner, mentioned that “Remoted-work success depends heavily on whether you trust employees to do their work even if you can’t see them.” (Wiles, 2020). According to Wiles (2020), 76 percent of HR leaders indicated that high-performance employee complained about the concerns form managers of low productivity and engagement in teams when working remotely. Thereby, managers should develop employee empowerment policies to boost employees’ confidence and earn trust from employees in order to enhance productivity. For example, HP, an American multinational information technology company, established a work from home policy across Asia that states to provide tools and flexibility to empower teams in executing work (Teo, 2020).

Another challenge that most of the HR managers encounter is the lack of technology infrastructure to support remote working. According to Wiles (2020), 54 percent of HR managers in a report stated that poor technology or infrastructure is one of the biggest challenges that impede companies in developing an effective remoted workplace. Technology is considered to be an essential element in working and communicating in a remote working environment. However, not every company possess sufficient resources to support technology development. Gentle (2020) reported that 33 percent of the companies in the UK consider themselves to lack of the resource to support long-term remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies around the world are gradually realizing the importance of IT and technology development and thus actively investing in IT to tackle with the new remoting working culture. Despite of this, it is also important for mangers to support employees in learning to use these technologies by providing detailed guidelines and training. For example, Lenovo, a Chinese multinational technology company, provides employees with technology courses to ensure that the supporting IT system and tools are being leveraged (Teo, 2020). In addition, HR managers can choose to utilize free technology tools offered by technology companies. Tech Giants such as Google and Microsoft had provided free remote working tools for business to overcome the challenge of insufficient IT resource. For instance, Microsoft offered a free trail of the premium version of its Teams chat app which allows companies to record meetings (Aten, 2020). Furthermore, Google allow free access of the enterprise version of Hangouts Meet to all of their business partners. It allows companies to record meetings and a gain a livestream ability that can contain up to 100,000 viewers (Aten, 2020).

Diversity in workplace

In present, it could be argued that having diversity in workplace is important and it can bring several benefits for companies. Zojceska (2018) defines the diversity in the workplace as the company hires employees that possess different characteristics such as different in gender, race, nationality and so forth. The organization which embrace diversity may be more creative and productive due to diverse ideas from different aspects among talented co-workers. Diverse workplace also facilitates higher job satisfaction which leads to less turnover and thus reduce company overheads. Furthermore, diverse team tend to make better decision. In the company aspect, diversity can increase the profit by raise the working efficiency of workers. Moreover, the competitiveness of the company will enhance as the company receive high reputation from not only employees but also consumers due to diverse workplace (Reynolds, 2019). In the culture aspect, organizations that possess diverse workforce can easily leverage local market knowledge and resources as well as deriving useful insights. Hence, diversity workforce is regarded as a source of competitive advantages for multinational companies. Reynolds (2019) also states that it is necessary for companies to maintain a high quality and culturally translations website, which cannot be done without the input of native speakers (Reynolds, 2019). Because of COVID-19, more and more employers decide to do the remote work form. Dolan, Hunt, Prince and Sancier-Sultan (2020) argue that this crisis may damage the diversity culture in the company by two main reasons which are representation at risk and eroding inclusion. Representation at risk implies that frontline workers in private or small multinational companies may be at risk since the company may lack of sufficient healthcare resource to support their working environment. Hence, automation may be a substitute that replace the job of these frontline employees. Eroding inclusion can happen during the remote work, the exclusive behavior and barrier can be grown. For example, China is the first country that adopt remote work culture. However, exclusive behaviors are growing due to the unclear communication in electronic channels which leads to confusion between each department in the company as well as impeding cooperation process a (Dolan, Hunt, Prince and Sancier-Sultan,2020).

Liswood (2020) states the manager can improve the diversity base on four points which are inclusion, performance, leadership and women’s participation. In terms of inclusion, managers should try to ensure that all members are included during the online conference with no one being neglected or left out in any circumstances. Hence, it is vital that mangers develop rigorous protocols to ensure the meeting quality. Regarding to performance, manager should become more rational and analytical on the process that are often driven by bias such as performance, feedback and pay evaluation. Since there are no physical contact in the office due to the pandemic, employees do not have to opportunity to swing by boss’s office and brag about their success. Thereby, managers can be more candid in dealing with career decisions. In leadership, leaders have to control the situation in the organization by using different abilities. Companies often use the old-fashion, hard-power style to control the crisis. However, research shows that the soft-power such as empathy, appreciation, listening and support may be as important as the hard-power style. In present, companies which have both hard-power and soft-power styles can meet the employees need. In terms of women participation, women are the main point that manager should resolve in the workplace. In some countries, women have to face huge barriers in the workplace. For example, in the past, women are often regarded as workers with lower loyalty compared to work-from-home. Nowadays, due to COVID-19, the world is facing critical global health issues. Hence, managers should eliminate the barriers in women and not underestimate their contribution in productivity.

Conclusion

In conclusion, COVID-19 has cause several negative impacts around the world. Duffin (2020) mentions that the GDP will decline around 3 percentage to 2.4 percentage in global economic. In business aspect, the impact can be divided into internal environment and external environment, which not only contain the impact for the inside of the company, but also the outside factors than may influence the business such as economic, consumer, political and so forth. During this crisis, the manager has to meet several challenges and how to solve this problem. Firstly, remote work is a way to solve the problem by working in home to maintain the business, however it may cause some problem as well, it may be hard to communicate and collaborate with others and meet the expectation of employees. Remote work could be seen as a trend that more and more companies tend to choose this type of operation, thus; the manager has to deal with the problem above. Diversity can also be promoted during the disaster, the manager can improve based on four points which are inclusion, performance, leadership and participate of women. The manager should consider for not only their business, but also workers, both of them are asset of company.