People and Organisations

                      Work life balance – An Emerging Human Resource Management issue in Sri Lanka The cost of living in today’s economic environment is quite high, which makes employees work harder, juggle multiple employment roles, and even work extra hours (Aroosiya, 2023). With the rising labor shortage in Sri Lanka, along with the organization’s demands, the employees are forced to work overtime. Even after coming back from work, they cannot escape from thinking about their job responsibilities, and there are those who make plans for tomorrow’s work schedule. Similarly, for me too, I keep making plans for tomorrow’s work schedule upon reaching home. In today’s context, this problem is prevalent across all industries, particularly within the clothing, tourism, and manufacturing industries. Within our parent organization, we have two hotels and because of labor shortage at present, some of the workers work overtime and even skip...

High Targets and High Stress     A Rising HRM Problem in the Post Crisis Sri Lankan Economy Today, Sri Lanka is in a period of post crisis recovery, where macroeconomic factors have remained relatively stable compared to the turbulence experienced between 2022 and 2023. Nonetheless, businesses still face substantial structural issues including rising cost of living, labor migration, foreign exchange problems, and competitiveness concerns. Against this backdrop, there emerges a new HRM problem, which pertains to the increased targets and stress among employees. This can be very well understood from the apparel industry in Sri Lanka, which continues to remain one of the major export industries of the country. Even though there has been some improvement in the exports, there are still cost issues and human resource issues that exist (Wickramasinghe & Smith, 2025). In this connection, the company called Next Manufacturing, located in Katunayake, was reported to have downs...

  From Skill Gaps to Outsourcing - A Growing HRM Challenge in Sri Lanka The present economic scenario in Sri Lanka has led many businesses to cut down on expenses (Sriyani, 2022). Consequently, there has been a sharp decline in expenditure on employee training and development programs. In most businesses, particularly  SMEs, newly hired workers are employed immediately without adequate training. This has caused inexperienced staff to commit errors, thus putting the organization in tough positions. As an example, In the present condition of Sri Lanka, most of the staff employed by the organizations lack adequate knowledge on taxation. This could lead to errors in the computation of taxes, payment of taxes which will ultimately affect the business organization adversely in terms of huge tax assessments and penalties. Ultimately, more costs are incurred by the organizations. The above scenario becomes even worse since the government's tax department has become very stringent rece...

Managing Gig Workers in Sri Lanka - Challenges and HRM Implications Given the present economic environment in Sri Lanka, many organizations have been faced with rising overhead expenses (Ramamoorthy and Adikaram, 2024). In this case, there has been an increasing challenge of providing competitive salaries to employees, paying for EPF and ETF contributions, and investing in staff development. This has led to the recruitment of gig employees becoming common practice. Gig workers refer to people who do not have permanent jobs but rather engage in working in brief jobs, as freelancers, or under short term contracts. The use of platforms like Upwork and Fiverr allows workers to offer their services both virtually and physically, and they get compensated according to the task, project, or hour worked. While organizations enjoy this arrangement, there is increasing concern about how gig workers are treated fairly. However, regarding social security coverage, gig workers in Sri Lanka are l...

                                             Impact of Fuel and Transportation Challenges on Worker Attendance During Periods of International Conflict Worker attendance has emerged as a crucial problem for Sri Lanka owing to the current international conflict between Iran, Israel, and the US, taking place in 2026. When the conflict began, there were difficulties with oil production and transport, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, which is responsible for about 20 % of the total world oil transportation. This resulted in fuel shortages worldwide and higher prices. As a fuel importing nation, Sri Lanka became an immediate victim of the situation, mainly concerning worker transport. The price of fuel increased by about 25-35 %, and fuel rationing and fewer working days were implemented to cope with the situation. As a result of these rising prices and th...

Interdepartmental Collaboration between IT and Other Departments                                              As the business world becomes more and more digitized, the interaction between IT and other departments within the organization has become a very crucial matter. The concern of interdepartmental collaboration has now emerged as an important HRM issue rather than just being a mere operational or technological issue within Sri Lankan firms. As companies become increasingly dependent on IT for their operational purposes, the role of IT within the company is becoming extremely crucial for the success of the firm  (Urbach et al., 2019) . Nevertheless, there seems to be substantial room for improvement when it comes to the coordination between the IT and other departments in Sri Lankan organizations. One of the key ca...

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Employee Well being In Sri Lanka, whenever anyone mentions AI, the first thing that comes to mind is job replacement and fear among employees that they will no longer have a means of earning their living. Although misuse of AI can result in job replacement, companies can take advantage of AI to engage in cooperation rather than displacement of employees. Consider a scenario whereby both humans and AI work together in an organization, human beings handle high value tasks, and AI takes care of mundane tasks  (García-Madurga et al., 2024) . There are many repetitive processes in the workplace that can be carried out by AI. Through automation, the workers will have an opportunity to do other productive things.  Artificial intelligence could be able to work during off hours to complete routine tasks for the organization, and then allow employees to go through the work, correct mistakes, and submit the final work. In large enterprises, gifted i...

  The Impact of Brain Drain on Organizations in Sri Lanka One of the key issues that are emerging in Sri Lanka is skill migration. This problem has been worsening since 2022 because of the sharp increase in the cost of living, which exceeds the amount of salary that workers earn. Professionals and skilled workers who work in such sectors as Information Technology, Health Care, and Engineering have decided to migrate abroad due to poor working conditions and the inability to maintain a comfortable standard of living (Anas and Wickremasinghe, 2010). These professionals worked hard all their lives to gain such positions, but everything suddenly changed and they failed to benefit from what they achieved throughout their lives. Some of them also think about a bright future for their children. Replacing competent staff who exit from organizations is no easy task. Organizations often think that competent staff can be easily replaced rather than concentrating on retaining them through the ...

         Why HR Adoption Is a Challenge for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses in Sri Lanka In Sri Lanka, a company is considered small and medium-sized if its yearly revenue does not exceed 750 million and it employs fewer than 300 people. That is the definition. However, when we simply consider SMEs, we get the impression that they are small businesses with few workers. The majority of SMEs are family owned businesses that are managed directly by their owners. Most SMEs do not feel the need for an HR department (Storey, 2016).  The owners of the business are in charge of everything. They think that the HR department is just another burden. This tendency has intensified following the economic crisis in Sri Lanka in 2022. Most owners believe they can handle their employees on their own. Sometimes they like the old fashioned way that their family members used to do things. Most of the time, they do not know what the right HR practices are (Harney & Dundon...