Advances in Developing Human Resources

Under the pandemic, employees face unique career challenges depending on their contexts and situations. For example, essential workers need to find ways for themselves and their families to be safe. Remote workers need to learn about new ways of working and communicating. In addition, for displaced or soon-to-be displaced workers, a job search is a primary career concern.

All agents—the organization, supervisors, and employees—can take actions to help employees sustain hope in their careers and recover from the pandemic. This study outcome which involves 257 intervention ideas can be utilized to support the career development of four different types of workers by employing the Hope-Action Theory framework.

The results of this study can guide Human Resource Development (HRD) practitioners and researchers in assisting employee career development by engaging the entire organization, supervisors, and employees. Organizational leaders and employees can also benefit directly from the study results.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many workers to move from brick and mortar buildings to virtual/remote environments. This created situations in which workers were forced to not only work virtually, but to work alone. The lack of physical contact with others has the potential to stifle efforts to remain engaged and consequently impede career development and progress.

Virtual mentoring is essential for providing emotional support, creating opportunities for dialogue, helping employees discover a balance between work and life, implementing a reward system, and enhancing an overall sense of well-being and belongingness for employees working in virtual/remote environments. Self-efficacy, a component of social learning theory, is a useful concept to study virtual/remote workers who often become self-empowered and rely on their own cognitive abilities to perform in a virtual/remote environment to ensure successful career outcomes.

HRD professionals, managers, supervisors, and others involved in ensuring that workers are engaged, supported, and continuously building skills while working virtually.

Women must often overcome inequitable workplace policies and unsupportive family for career development. Although remote work allows women the freedom to manage both work and family domains, stigma rooted in gender-stereotypes dissuades women from utilizing remote work policies and working flexibly.

Working from home during the pandemic, has led to some erosion of the stigma attached to remote work. Through the work/family border theory, we explore the new realities for employees working remotely and its positive impact on women’s career development. We argue, organizations can promote women’s careers by capitalizing on employee’s positive experiences with remote work during the pandemic, and support women’s career development even after the pandemic.

Stakeholders for this article include colleagues, supervisors, partners, and spouses, who have the power to influence women’s career development, as well as HRD professionals and organizational leaders who implement policies and practices supporting women’s career development.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced employees and organizational leaders to consider the reality of its impact on career goals. Individuals have been forced to reconsider or readjust their career goals as being achievable, deferred, or even eliminated. Organizational leaders or those in strategic positions have been forced to consider how individual career goals could impact the organization’s capacity to survive.

Career development theories are useful for examining the role of human resource development professionals in helping employees achieve career goals as they attempt to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic. Re-emphasizing career development as a core component of HRD highlights the significance of career development theories in adjusting to pandemics and crises that impact individual career goals and organizational strategic goals and opportunities.

HRD researchers, scholar/practitioners, professionals, and others who research and practice career development and use career development theory.

As most employees have been forced to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is considerable concern about how to preserve employee health and well-being by supporting their work in this unpredictable situation. In this sense, research highlighting how to support remote e-workers in the COVID-19 pandemic era is urgently needed to inform scholars and practitioners about effective strategies and interventions to support remote e-workers.

By reviewing conceptual and empirical studies, we discuss the challenges of remote e-workers from the perspective of psychological well-being. We also summarize the factors that support psychological well-being. Based on the findings, we suggest how human resource development (HRD) professionals can support remote e-workers’ psychological well-being and career development in the COVID-19 pandemic era.

This article has relevance for scholars, scholar-practitioners, and practitioners who are interested in seeking ways to support remote e-workers from an HRD perspective across countries, disciplines, and contexts in the COVID-19 pandemic era.