How normal is the new normal? Individual and Organizational implications of the Covid 19 Pandemic

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Background

The term “new normal” first appeared during the 2008 financial crisis to refer to the dramatic economic, cultural and social transformations that caused precariousness and social unrest, impacting collective perceptions and individual lifestyles. This term has been used again during the COVID-19 pandemic to point out how it has completely invested and transformed undebatable pivots of human life such as professional identity, economic subsistence, work and family organization, children’s education management; imposing a radical revision of the traditional ways, practices and skills used to manage them. This Research Topic aims to address the individual and organizational consequences of such issues and stimulate a scholarly inter- and multi-disciplinary debate.
We invite research papers and theoretical contributions that could enrich the psycho-social discussion about perspectives opened by “the new normal” situation. For example according to recent research, there are different changes in HR practices which stress the need of pursuing employees’ health and safety protection in the light of the high risk of contagion, which need heightened scholarly attention, such as:

- Economic stress and job insecurity. What will be the impact of a prolonged period of occupational inactivity due to lockdown? How will organizational and work restructuring processes affect individuals? Which occupational groups will be more affected by diffused feeling of job insecurity?
- Generational issues. How will different generations and cohorts of employees react to the new normal? What generational peculiarities will be beneficial or detrimental?
- Information and data security. Which security challenges will organizations and individuals face when dealing with remote working? How will internal communication be affected?
- Distance management. What new competencies will be required to managers to cope with the new normal? How could they effectively recruit, evaluate, motivate, control, train, support, etc. their collaborators from a distance?
- Working conditions. How could workers carry out now their previous tasks? How will organizations organize the work processes? How will new safety and health rules affect work processes? How will ITC technologies affect work conditions?
- Work-life interface. How could individuals manage home and work demands when mainly staying at home for work? How could organizations support their employees in meeting such demands?

We welcome inter- and multi-disciplinary theoretical or empirical contributions in the field of Work and Organizational Psychology, Strategic Human Resource Management, and Organizational Behavior discussing the implications of the “new normal”, specifically to tackle the following issues:
- Human resource management of change (e.g., perceived organizational support, high commitment HRM practices) and positive organizational behavior outcomes (e.g., engagement, extra-role behaviors, performance)
- Psychosocial implications of Remote Work Management (e.g., techno-stress, digital skills, workload, workaholism)
- New P/O relationships, New meanings of work, new psychological contracts (e.g., generational differences as Millennials versus X Generation)
- Redefinition of individual and organizational career management (e.g., making sense of careers, sustainable careers, career shocks)
- Work-life interface (e.g., work-life conflict and/or enrichment, work-study conflict, positive and negative spillover effects, crossover effects)
- Impact of individual resources for coping with change, job insecurity and economic stress (e.g., self-efficacy, psychological capital, hope)

Keywords: Covid 19 pandemic, HRM, Change Management, Technostress, Work/Life balance, Career, Meaning of working

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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