Financial and Legal Challenges Faced by the Contemporary HR Practices During Covid-19 in UK

Financial and Legal Challenges Faced by the Contemporary HR Practices During Covid-19 in the United Kingdom and their Solutions
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Financial and Legal Challenges Faced by the Contemporary HR Practices During Covid-19 in the United Kingdom and their Solutions
On December 19, 2019, the coronavirus infection (COVID-19) was detected for the first time in Wuhan, China. It causes severe acute respiratory syndrome and has a global spread. The virus, which is spread by minute droplets from an infected person, has a high mortality rate and has infected over 380 million people worldwide, resulting in over 5.6 million deaths. The virus has infected about 17 million individuals in the United Kingdom, resulting in over 155,000 fatalities (WHO, n.d). Global leaders have imposed travel restrictions announced stay-at-home orders, shutdown, lockdown, facility closures, and occupational hazard measures in reaction to the viral pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the suspension and reorganization of several economic and human resource activities around the globe, including leisure, industry, and education. The pandemic has influenced critical human resource practices in the formal sector in the United Kingdom. Both sides to an employment contract, the employee and the employer, have been impacted by positions requiring regular hours and salary. This study will examine the legal and financial challenges confronting human resource professionals in the United Kingdom during Covid-19 and their solutions to assist researchers and practitioners in comprehending emerging human resource issues and associated human resource practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Literature Review
According to Biasi (2020), the prevailing pandemic has created legal challenges to both the employees and employers from a labor law angle. These conclusions converged with the findings by Sagan and Schüller  (2020). With the introduction of movement restrictions such as lockdowns, businesses could not meet their contractual end of the bargain as businesses were forced to close (Biasi, 2020). Several studies have found that due to Covid 19, the relationship between employees and HR has been severely hampered (Leighton & McKeown; Spurk & Straub, 2020). The concept of working from has been applied in almost all parts of the globe, with different sectors and businesses adopting the new working norm (Spurk & Straub, 2020). Leighton and McKeown (2020) postulate that this has consequently blurred traditional centuries-old international boundaries. In this context, COVID-19 has fundamentally altered the scope of labor laws by repositioning scrapping boundaries that apply to certain states or countries (Sachs, 2020). This creates a quandary for corporations, which must adapt government policies and laws to their organizational setting while simultaneously considering employee demands (Sachs, 2020).
Vaccines have shone a light of hope to businesses worldwide. However, they have also added some challenges to the HR department. Rothstein, Parmet, and Reiss (2021) argue that COVID-19 vaccines have brought financial dilemmas to the HR departme...