Abstract
Public health crises such as COVID-19, have significant consequences on employees and workplaces in the form of domestic violence, which is rarely analyzed through the lens of human resource management (HRM). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown measures impacted the social dynamics of families, thereby increasing the vulnerability of women, including working women to domestic abuse. The paper examines women’s lived experiences of domestic violence during the pandemic in Jammu district using a qualitative-dominant, mixed-methods ethnographic design, with special reference to wellbeing of employees, work-life conflict and organizational support. Quantitative context was drawn from institutional records of 200 police-reported cases and a structured questionnaire administered to all 200 women, while rich ethnographic insight was generated through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 25 purposively selected women from this dataset, sampled until thematic saturation was reached, from both rural and urban settings. The thematic analysis helped in identifying various types of abuse such as physical, emotional, psychological, economic and sexual as increasing; which had direct consequences on the ability of participants to work, their focus on work and to be engaged in working environment. Pandemic-specific triggers such as prolonged confinement, economic pressure and restricted mobility hindered the ability to seek support from workplace-based and organizational channels. Women also didn’t prefer to report the abuse due to family honour, cultural norms and social stigma. The pandemic intensified the pre-existing gender inequalities as well as the institutional loopholes, which is very well depicted in the study by using qualitative and secondary data. The paper highlights the role of gender-responsive and crisis-adaptive interventions, specifically the organizational and HR-led measures like work settings that are flexible, employee aiding programmes and reporting mechanisms which are confidential so as to back up the protection services and to analyze how employee wellbeing and organizational functioning can be taken care of during public health crises such as COVID-19 pandemic.