The impact of COVID-19 on the business continuity of the Sri Lankan apparel industry: Human resource management (HRM)

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.