COVID-19 HR Practices Survey: 50% organisations across industries change their salary increment budgets, 66% suspend new hirings  

Pune, May 4, 2020: With the COVID-19 outbreak bringing about unprecedented times, organisations worldwide have taken steps to reevaluate their practices and do what’s best to sustain amid tough times. For instance, a few organisations are implementing hiring freezes and wage freezes, while others are introducing remote working alternatives, revisiting employee engagement initiatives  and additional financial assistance.

KPMG has released its India’s COVID-19 HR Practices Survey Report titled – Cutting through Crisis. The survey offers a detailed and in depth analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, on key human resource (HR) processes, policies and interventions across industries. The survey outcomes, highlight the impact of COVID-19 on a wide range of HR practices and processes like employee well-being, recruitment, compensation and benefits, performance management and  learning and development etc.

315 organisations were polled across 20 key industry sectors. Key parameters of the study were finalized with a structured questionnaire designed to cover all parameters to make it a holistic and in-depth study with all responses being audited for quality and completeness. Data analyzed was used to generate insights across sectors and other key demographics.

Organisation support and well-being

• 90 per cent of the responding organisations have at least one initiative around well-being of employees whereas 21 per cent are quite proactive and have 5 or more initiatives to support employee well-being
• 80 per cent of the responding organisations in IT, ITES, BFSI and advisory sectors rated their practices as highly mature or mature enough. (The term ‘organisation maturity’ in the context of this survey here, is used to denote the level of maturity of an organisation’s infrastructure and practices to support work from home for their employees)
• While 68 per cent of the responding organisations admitted that they are mature to support remote working, only 48 per cent of the organisations are supporting their employees by providing laptops with secured connection to ensure smooth remote working.
• Top three sectors that issued laptops with secured internet connections are BFSI, IT/ITES and GCC. Additionally, usage of personal laptop with adequate security was found prevalent in PSUs, infrastructure and retail companies
• When it comes to measures organisations are taking to monitor employee well-being, HR e-connect and Leadership call/connect tops the chart

Employee engagement and communication

• 75 per cent of organisations have re-defined their communication strategy to increase engagement of employees, virtual team meetings (70 per cent) and briefing for employees by leadership (62 per cent) being the top two leading engagement practices.
• Organisations are redefining their talent strategies, with higher focus been given to designing interventions to engage and retain critical, high potential and essential workforce: Critical Workforce and Essential Workforce top the charts by garnering focus from 80 and 82 per cent organizations respectively

Promotions, Compensation and benefits

• 50 per cent of the companies have deferred or suspended their promotion schedule; at the same time a downward trend on promotions numbers across all job levels was observed wherein 33 per cent of organisations admitted to having reduced it
• However, most organisations in IT/ITES, life sciences/pharma and retail sector have refrained from any downwards trend in overall promotion cycle
• While 50 per cent organisations across industries are keeping their salary increment budgets unchanged, around 36 per cent organisations have opted for decreasing the salary increment budgets
• More than 40 per cent organisations in advisory, automobile, education, energy, oil and gas sector have opted to defer the increment cycle
• Majority of the organisations (80 per cent) across industries have not changed the health insurance benefits offered to employees. With health of employees being the focus for all organisations, there was a positive trend observed in some sectors such as advisory (29 per cent), consumer goods (30 per cent), etc. who have reported an upward revision of health insurance entitlements across management and non-management levels
• Around 70 per cent of the organisations across levels have reported no change in the planned impact on fixed pay at the non-management and junior management levels
• Around 50 per cent of the organisations are either looking at keeping the sales incentive unchanged or considering a downward revision across levels
• A large proportion of organisations (80 per cent) have not changed the leave policies offered to the employees
• If COVID-19 situation persists, around 22 per cent of the organisations may defer, freeze or suspend incentive payouts to support their overall finances

Recruitment

• 66 per cent of organisations have deferred or suspended their hiring schedule at different job levels, while 30 per cent have also reduced their headcount budgets
• Across job roles, except at non-management levels, most companies have opted to go ahead with freezing or suspending hiring
• Sectors such as IT/ITES, life sciences/pharma and consumer goods report very few organizations who have a suspended hiring schedule

Learning and Development

• Current crisis is pushing majority of corporates to take the leap and switch to ‘e-webinars’ (27 per cent) and ‘e-learning’ (26 per cent)
• 47 per cent have modified their learning strategy to drive more effective virtual working, whereas 32 per cent have not, and for 21 per cent it’s not a priority

Commenting on the findings of the report Vishalli Dongrie, Partner and Head, People & Change, KPMG in India said “ The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted the business world with a radical impact cutting across industries. Organizations are navigating an unprecedented and challenging time and are collectively at a level playing ground as none had an upper hand of being better prepared or equipped to deal with the crisis. As organisations grapple to minimize the impact, Human Resource professionals are being called upon to help evaluate and strategize a strong and holistic response that encompasses the evolved priorities for the organization, it’s mission, values and community impact. With most organizations now moving to a new normal of working which is more liquid and flexible in nature, there is a need for strategies and new operating models for business continuity and workforce management. Organizations need strategies for reimagining work and workforce landscape, new operating and governance models, evolving cultures and talent priorities, new roles and capabilities, new ways of measuring performance, and enabling areas such as transformative policy frameworks, strong technology infrastructure, employee wellbeing and an effective leadership. These interventions are the need of the hour and will help organizations to re-invent themselves for them to continue to succeed in the present and in the future.”