Adaptive Performance in Post-COVID Era: A Major Challenge for B-School Students

Dr. Rachana Chattopadhyay,Professor (Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management),

Dean (Academics),International Management Institute, Kolkata.

In the business context, the post-COVID era is marked with turbulence and volatility. Past ten years, in the pre-COVID era, we have witnessed that a learning organization stands as a key differentiating factor from its close competitors and sets a more vibrant customer-responsive culture. However, the post-COVID era is demanding something more. Under this unprecedented circumstance, it has already been observed that a learning organization is not sufficient to gain the competitive edge, it is equally important for the employees to project adaptive performance.

Currently, organizations are constantly seeking employees who are able to learn and adapt with the demands of changing business environment. The changes in technology and consequent restructuring of the organization demand that employees learn new skills and enhance their adaptability. Global model of adaptive performance (Pulakos et.al. 2000) comprises of eight dimensions, namely dealing with unpredictable work, handling emergencies or crisis situations, creative solving of problems, handling work stress, learning new tasks, demonstrating interpersonal adaptability, demonstrating cultural adaptability and demonstrating physically oriented adaptability. Organizations in the post COVID era can only gain competitive advantages if the employees are performing decently under these eight dimensions of adaptive performance.

At IMI Kolkata, we are preparing our students to develop the right attitude and skill sets that are required for adaptive performance. To facilitate the multitasking abilities within the students we have expanded the area specializations and allowed them to select subjects from different areas. As COVID situation gave tremendous momentum to the digital world, we are offering management courses with digital interface along with analytics. IMI Kolkata is continuously organizing conclaves, summits, workshops by the industry experts to develop the expected attitude and skills within the students for dealing with the future challenges.

Reference:

Pulakos, E.D., Arad, S., Donovan, M.A. and Plamondon, K.E. (2000), “Adaptability in the work place: development of taxonomy of adaptive performance”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 85 No. 4, pp. 612-624.