Impact of employees engagement and knowledge sharing on organizational performance: Study of HR challenges in COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

PURPOSE: When the economy’s in terrible shape, any of us is lucky to have a job, human resources managers worrying about whether or not employees are contributing to the organizational goals and objectives, and how to pursue the recruitment and selection process, employee’s engagement, and, training and development activities, these are the current human resource management challenges which are created due to COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations around the world are facing a tough situation, first time in history, the worth of one-barrel oil fell to less than nothing on 20th April 2020, the only reason is behind this is the current lockdown around the world. The physical workplace is converted into a virtual workplace, now the HR managers are planning how to engage the employees efficiently. This study pursued to examine the effect of employee’s engagement on organizational performance through the mediating effect of knowledge sharing for employees of higher educational institutions. METHOD: A quantitative research method is used in this study, non-probability sampling design with a focus on convenient sampling frame is deployed in this study. The questionnaire is adapted from the past studies, Initially Google forms were used to collect the data, due to lower response rate questionnaire were distributed in hard copies and sent to the targeted respondents. Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to test the conceptual framework. RESULTS: The results showed that employee engagement has a significant and positive impact on organizational performance. Further, it was found that knowledge sharing has a significant and positive impact on organizational performance. Moreover, knowledge sharing only partially mediated the association between employee engagement and organizational performance. Covid-19 pandemic is destroying global economies, but at the same time its bringing different opportunities for organizations also. Now organizations have to think about how to avail this opportunity, organizations are going virtually, and in this situation, it is the biggest challenge for the Human Resource (HR) managers to manage the employee effectively.