Abstract:
The Sri Lankan apparel industry is having a high demand for exports all over the world
and is a leading apparel producer in the South Asian region. It has started to fight for
its survival due to the pandemic, Covid-19. It guesses a bracing for a 50% drop in
demand by the following one to one and a half years from Covid-19. Thus, the industry
is in a position to reinvent itself by forcing itself to live. Thus, business continuity is
necessary to proceed with the business without any interruption at this time. Moreover,
human resource professionals act a major role to continue the business after the new
normal, as handling the main resource of the organisation which is humans. Hence, this
study aims to investigate the level of impact and consequences of Covid-19 in the
business continuity process of the Sri Lankan apparel industry from the human resource
management perspective. Initially, the literature review delivered a theoretical
understanding of the research area and three large-scale apparel organisations were
selected, a case study research strategy with a quantitative approach. Collected data
were analysed using the Likert scale and weighted average manual content analysis. The
findings revealed that Training and development help to compensate for the labour
shortage, and technology improvements have modified the recruitment pattern. The
difficulty of measuring performance has a negative impact on employee engagement;
however, job uncertainty and providing satisfactory opportunities for development have
increased employee engagement; thus, there is a balance in employee engagement, and
communication plays an important role in that. Furthermore, flexible working hours
have a positive impact on employee performance and job satisfaction.
