Программы адаптации персонала для удаленных сотрудников в период пандемии COVID-19: исследование «кейс стади» российского филиала транснациональной консалтинговой компании

Human Resource Management has long established itself as an essential component of a successful business. Companies around the world spend time and money to bring to life the ideas and strategies that scientists discover, rediscover and develop day after day. But with the advent of new technologies and new ways of doing business, there are previously unseen problems and obstacles that companies have to face. Those who find a way to bypass such obstacles first gain a huge advantage over competitors, because innovation in the broadest sense is the key to prosperity and rapid development. But sometimes circumstances appear on the horizon that cannot be influenced by academics, managers, or business owners. All that remains for them is to take the current reality for granted and to look for opportunities for early adaptation with all their might. One of these circumstances in early 2020 became COVID-19, which plunged the whole world into a global pandemic and brought uncertainty, fear and new conditions of existence.
The virus, which originated in a little-known region of China, seemed to put the whole world on pause, while changing the rules of the game. Thus, entire sectors of the economy were forced to slow down, if not stop, while the best minds of the planet were looking for suitable measures to stop the spread of the deadly virus and at the same time try to maintain the delicate balance of the world economy in which the world was before. One such global measure has been working from home, also known as telecommuting or telecommuting.
The concept of remote work has been hovering in scientific and business circles for a long time, but it continued to be regarded as an additional, alternative form of work. Many entrepreneurs and freelancers appeared in the world who provided themselves and their loved ones with exclusively remote work, but such a quick and widespread introduction of telework among global corporations was more like the beginning of a science fiction film. But as will be further demonstrated in this study, no one was ready for such a plot development. And as soon as the virus gained strength, states and organizations had no choice but to learn and adapt on the fly.
But a human being differs from most living things on Earth precisely in that it knows how to adapt. Therefore, the machine of the world economy started working again relatively quickly, albeit not with the same force as back in January 2020. And as the business began to function again, the process of recruiting new employees, their adaptation and introduction to the company continued. And apart from the direct activities of companies, it was the onboarding and induction processes that underwent the most striking changes, because all the strategies that companies used have become sharply outdated due to one simple factor – most employees were transferred to remote work in order to minimize contacts with other people and containing the spread of the COVID-19 virus, respectively.
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It is for the reasons described above that it is especially interesting to understand what consequences the global pandemic and remote work, as a consequence, have brought to induction programs, as well as to understand how ordinary employees feel and what they go through, because not only companies have to adapt, but also those who have to get acquainted with a new organization, a new team and new responsibilities in completely new conditions for them, spurring the already high level of stress in which humanity has been living for the last year and a half.
Due to the novelty of this problem, the researchers did not have time to disassemble all aspects of this phenomenon, which gives rise to the following research questions and to find answers to them:
Q1: What have changed about the induction program of the company during the COVID- 19 pandemic?
Q2: What newcomers feel about the company’s induction program during the COVID-19 pandemic?
The results of this study will be a deeper understanding of the problem, as well as an analysis of the measures taken by the regional office of one of the largest international consulting firms. Such results will help define the field for future academic research and guide practice towards optimizing and increasing the effectiveness of the measures taken.