The effect of critical world situation on employee engagement and leadership responsibilities in organization X

Abstract

Current critical situation in the world have caused quick adaptation for many businesses of different scales to rapidly changing economic conditions, therefore businesses had to also undergo internal alterations, which in its turn affected the companies’ environment. As a result companies’ employees tend to experience a range of emotions, starting from overall uncertainty and frustration about their job security to fear and anxiety concerning the company's response and actions to the crisis. These emotions in their turn can have a negative effect on employees’ motivation and engagement, which may potentially lead to decreased productivity, work engagement or even higher rate of absenteeism.

The aim of the research is to analyse the impact of covid-19 pandemic as well as the following political situation on case company’s employees’ working life, engagement level and productivity. In addition the research will focus on leadership responsibilities in terms of providing support and means for the employees to deal with implications. The outcome of the thesis is to create a guideline to support both employees and employers and for company leaders to utilize in possible similar situations in the future. In addition, since the case company deals with human resource applications, possible solutions and features will be proposed.

Economic crises are common occasions in today's globalized economy. The crises may adopt various forms, from stock market crashes to a larger scale disasters that profoundly affect every country and industries and sectors. However, current critical situation is characterised by unprecedentedly larger impact on various businesses since covid-19 pandemic-induced economic crisis of year 2020 was later followed by war in Ukraine, creating even more complex and significantly worse economic situation in diverse fields of business. Additionally, these two occurrences affected an emotional condition of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, causing indisposition towards routine activities, such as work. This particular aspect does arise great interest, to study and deeper understand this impact. The study and its comprehensive theoretical background provides the necessary theoretical framework and guidelines for its implementation within the case organization or can even be utilized by other companies as a component of the validity of the study.