In 2019, the world witnessed the devastating impact of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). COVID-19 is the novel coronavirus that goes with the name severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-COV-2) (Sansa, 2020). The virus was first identified in Wuhan City in China at the end of 2019 and is associated by scientists with a disease referred to as COVID-19 (Sansa, 2020). Researchers at Imperial College in London estimated the global impact of the COVID-19 virus to range between 20 million deaths in 2020, with effective non-pharmaceutical interventions in place and 40 million deaths, without such interventions (Walker, Whittaker, & Watson, 2020).

As a result of the COVID-19 virus, there was a drastic change of life (World Health Organization, 2020), leading to the COVID-19 pandemic raising some glaring issues. Firstly, the observed impact was not only on economic growth but also on global financial markets (Baur, 2020). Some predictions estimated that the global economy could witness its slowest ever growth rate since 2009 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2020). On the business front, expectations were that businesses would be affected by the pandemic, including the management of people (Bapuji et al., 2020). There is acknowledgement of the need to adjust to the new normal and a move towards some form of normality given the difficulty posed by the COVID-19 pandemic (Handfield, Graham & Burns 2020; Trautrims, Schleper, Cakir & Gold, 2020).

It is also acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic has a compounding effect, especially on the vulnerable in society (Raju & Van Niekerk, 2020), inclusive of their area of habitation (Raju & Ayeb-Karlsson, 2020). Such a state of affairs exists as a threat to individuals’ health and well-being (Beckman, Mechanic, Shah, & Figueroa, 2021). In countries such as South Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic is believed to exacerbate the already existing challenges of poverty (Van der Merwe, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted even the work of the non-governmental sector with devastating consequences (Ned, McKinney, McKinney, & Swartz, 2020).

Given the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, some calls to address COVID-19 related challenges exist within the literature. Firstly, there is a need to be expansive whilst understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and explore the support provided. The focus then is on understanding micro issues and linkages with macro issues stemming from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (Cho, 2020). Emerging empirical focus within South Africa has been centred on understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic at a wider societal level, including interventions for support (De Klerk, Joubert, & Mosca, 2021). This places importance on understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the targeted interventions from an organisational and institutional unit of analysis (Magezi & Manzanga, 2020). This has seen studies emerge from an organisational lens and relying mostly on managers and employees as informants (Atiku, Jeremiah, & Boateng, 2020). Secondly, calls exist for more disciplinary contributions to understanding the COVID-19 pandemic. This is observed within the psychology discipline concerned with understanding ‘human behaviour’, warranting further inquiry in how the pandemic as a challenge can be addressed (Pillay & Barnes, 2020, p. 148).

Given the evolving nature of developments around the COVID-19 pandemic, the voices of experts within the field and disciplines of Industrial Organisation (IO) Psychology can be useful in enhancing understanding of the unfolding complexity. An IO Psychologist is viewed through the South African Health Professions Act as an individual who assists adults in adjusting to work-related issues by applying psychology principles (South African Department of Health, 2012). IO Psychologists are deemed an important conduit in assisting employees with counselling related to personal and work problems (De jager-van Straaten, Jorgensen, Hill, & Nel, 2016). With the ambivalence that exists around the current business environment given the COVID-19 pandemic (McKinsey 2020), IO Psychologists’ role may be deemed critical in such a situation.

Practitioners within the IO Psychology discipline become important both for the individual and for the organisational growth (Bergh, 2012). Furthermore, IO Psychologists seek to maintain a fit between an employee and their workplace (Schreuder & Coetzee, 2010). IO Psychology’s strength is not their knowledge of theory but its application to real-life scenarios (Cilliers & Flotman, 2016). Given this important role of IO Psychologists, there is also a need to understand such practitioners’ views, especially regarding the changing nature of work and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As evident in emerging international work, the benefit here is the potential to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and to link this with already existing issues and challenges on the ground (Blustein et al., 2020). This becomes important, especially within a South African context, as IO Psychology has been framed to have a more community development function (Van Zyl, Nel, Stander, & Rothmann, 2016).

The scope of this research is within the field of IO Psychology. The views and opinions of IO Psychologists on how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect their discipline can be a useful precursor to interventions that assist such practitioners. Calls exist within the literature for sector influenced responses to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic in response to discipline and community needs (Hudecheck, Siren, Grichnik, & Wincent, 2020). The research thus sought to understand the framing of the COVID-19 pandemic to IO Psychology as a practice and explore the role of IO Psychologists as a result of all this. The following research question was set: How do IO Psychologists frame the COVID-19 pandemic as part of their personal and professional experience and what envisaged role do they play as part of this framing?

Three main findings emerged from the study informed by the thematic analysis conducted. Firstly, the participating IO Psychologists narrated experiences of personal challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly and related to the professional sphere, the IO Psychologists expressed challenges of a direct nature affecting their practice and individual well-being. Thirdly, the participating IO Psychologists suggested resultant professional roles that emerged from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included (1) prioritisation of personal physical and mental health, (2) more technological skills and acumen needed to adjust to the challenges posed by the pandemic, (3) promotion of continued professional learning and (4) the necessity for support networks amongst practitioners. These results are presented in the next section.

The purpose of the study was to ascertain the challenges faced by IO Psychologists as part of their lived experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to this, the study sought to investigate ensuing roles as a result of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Three main findings emerged: (1) narrated personal challenges as part of the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, (2) challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on the professional sphere and (3) four resultant roles emerged as part of points (1) and (2). This section presents a discussion of these findings with the extant literature.

The presented challenges as illustrated in the findings of this study appear to support views around the drastic changes that happen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (World Health Organization, 2020). This study narrowed the focus to a sample group of IO Psychologists in illustrating this change. Notably, the change appears to be a nexus between the personal and professional identity of the IO Psychologists. This link supports the theorising of Raju and Van Niekerk (2020) as to the idea of the compounding effect of the pandemic. In essence, through this change, the findings of the research attest to the acknowledged impact of the pandemic on how people work and how they live their lives (Bapuji et al., 2020).

The two presented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic to the personal and professional identity potentially can pose a threat to the health and well-being of the IO Psychologists (Beckman et al., 2021). This has the potential to create both psychological and physical strain on the individual (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Addressing these personal and professional challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic creates a platform to assist practitioners (Kelly, 2020). Whilst going through the identified challenges, focus should be on ensuing roles as a mechanism to assist IO Psychologists during this period of difficulty. The resultant roles appear to be framed on the consideration of the interaction between individual and social experiences (Carlson et al., 2017). In essence, findings appear to support some presented theoretical positions. For instance, the importance of human capabilities such as IO Psychologists as framed in the human capital theory (Bag & Gupta, 2019). There is a need to understand the challenges faced by such human capabilities and the means of coping (Hofmann & Rüsch, 2017). The findings of the study illustrate the importance of IO Psychologists as crucial human capabilities and the challenges and resultant roles of coping.

The study prioritises four roles as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These roles include: (1) the prioritisation of personal physical and mental health, (2) more technological skills and acumen needed to adjust to the challenges posed by the pandemic, (3) promotion of continued professional learning and (4) the necessity for support networks amongst practitioners. These roles should be seen as resources of coping with personal and professional situations. In essence, attesting support to the job demands-resources model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). The resultant roles can be seen to support the idea of Ryff (2013) of resources that can assist an individual to promote their well-being.

The study makes some important contributions. Firstly, through the resultant four roles of IO Psychologists because of the challenge of the pandemic, the answers call for research seeking an understanding of the new normal of working given the challenges of the pandemic (Handfield et al., 2020; Trautrims et al., 2020). Secondly, the findings of the study potentially extend understanding around emerging work on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic not only at a societal level but also with a disciplinary angle (De Klerk et al., 2020; Magezi & Manzanga, 2020). This has the potential to create a body of knowledge from which interventions can be made (Pillay & Barnes, 2020) especially within an important discipline such as Industrial Psychology (De jager-van Straaten et al., 2016). Given that the work of IO Psychologists is community centred, the presented findings assist in creating points of helping practitioners with their important role in the community. Thirdly, the presented professional roles (considering also the presented challenges) have the potential to help IO Psychologists shape the future themes of their profession in general and also to promote their general well-being. For instance, the promotion of technological acumen in the work of IO Psychologists, as found in this study, becomes a skill being recognised as important both in pre- and post-COVID-19 world. Technology such as telecommuting, virtual teams and cloud computing can then enhance the work of IO Psychologists (Li, 2016).

Based on the findings of the study, some implications can be drawn. Firstly, there is a need to provide support services to IO Psychologists and their families in response to the pandemic’s challenges. Despite IO Psychologists often being the people who provide support services, they also need a platform through which these support services can exist. Secondly, there is a need to prioritise the continuous professional development of IO Psychologists, especially during the pandemic. This development can be useful for the benefit of the IO Psychologists and for the profession. Thirdly, professional associations such as the Society for Industrial Organisational Psychology South Africa can take a further active step in providing a platform of expression for IO Psychologists. This can be to assist in providing support services and structures that help professionals. Responsibility should also be given to the IO Psychologists to develop skills and acumen needed to survive, especially in a post-COVID-19 world. These skills and acumen can be technological in nature and become important, especially given the global shift towards more online-based working. Implications can also be drawn based on how the next generation of IO Psychologists can and should be trained. Emphasis is on a balance between skills that assist in advancing the individual and those of the profession. This calls for a re-think of the IO Psychology curricular being taught, especially in universities. A need here is for a curricular that empowers the IO Psychologist in training to be ready for the ever-changing work context and for the world in general.

Some limitations can be drawn from the study. Firstly, caution should be exercised when interpreting the study’s findings, given the apparent challenges concerning sampling. The research relied on a convenience sample and does not represent all the registered IO Psychologists in South Africa. Secondly, all of the interviews were conducted online. Although this created an opportunity to actually conduct the interviews, it was a process that had its own difficulty. In some cases, connectivity challenges emerged as a problem as most participating IO Psychologists worked from home. This created a challenge both around connectivity and the need to accommodate participants as they juggled between work and home demands. In some cases, some of the participating IO Psychologists requested the researcher to purchase data bundles to allow the interviews to take place. A final challenge concerned issues around the period during which the interviews were conducted. The data collection happened 2 months after the first lockdown announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in March 2020. From December 2020, South Africa was believed to be going through a second variant of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, from January 2021, there was talk of a vaccine roll-out. These are important events happening. The data collection conducted during this study did not factor in these events. In essence, the framing of the impact and resultant roles to emerge were mostly confined to the pandemic’s early experiences. Furthermore, there is also the challenge of retrospective bias, especially when asking participants to recall their experiences.

Suggestions for future research can be made. Firstly, this study explored general challenges faced by IO Psychologists; there is thus a need to narrow focus on specific challenges and explore these further. For instance, an in-depth study could be warranted to understand aspects of work-home life balance amongst IO Psychologists especially during the pandemic period. Another interesting area of future research could be to explore the support mechanisms IO Psychologists rely on not necessarily as part of professional development but as individuals facing the pandemic challenges. Secondly, there is a need for more studies that could also incorporate other stakeholders who may work under the IO Psychologists’ supervision. These could include interns and gauging their experiences related to their development in becoming professionals within the IO Psychology discipline. This can also provide useful information that assists in improving the practice in general. Future research can categorise the experience of IO Psychologists, considering the different levels and areas of expertise. This study provided a more general outlook, yet this narrowed focus can also help to understand the experience better within the same cohorts. Finally, new scales are being developed that are specific to COVID-19 concerns and perceptions. It would be interesting to conduct quantitative-based surveys that explore such experiences. This would further help improve understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic within the confines of the IO Psychology discipline.

The study thus makes an important contribution to an important topic that deserves further interrogation. An opportunity here through understanding the challenges presented in this study could be proposing interventions that assist IO Psychologists in their personal and work roles. Through the resultant professional roles, the study reveals priority issues as developmental in the work performed by IO Psychologists.