Tabriz University of Medical Sciences Depiction of Health 2008-9058 13 1 2022 03 21 The Need for Human Resource Management in the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Crisis: A Meta-Synthesis Study 127 144 10.34172/doh.2022.10 EN Mir Ali Seyed Naghavi https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3159-2611 Zahra Bagheri https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6238-4041 REVIEW 10.34172/doh.2022.10 2021 03 08 2021 09 18 Background. The crisis caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak in 2019 has caused challenges and problems for most organizations, as well as difficulties for employees, the most valuable organizational resource. Based on previous researches in this field, this study aimed to identify the components of Human Resources (HR) during the new coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. Methods. The present meta-synthesis study used four keywords of Human Resources (HR), Human Resource Management (HRM), coronavirus, and COVID-19, to explore the literature databases of Proquest, The Scientific Information Database (SID), Web of Science, Emerald journals and the specialized search engine, Google Scholar, in 2019-2021. The number of sources initially found was 1,029, of which 921 articles were rejected because of their titles. After screening 108 abstracts, we reduced the list to 65 articles for review by rejecting 16 abstracts based on quality and 27 abstracts based on content. Also, three universal themes, three constructive themes, and 11 basic themes and 117 codes were extracted. Results. Based on the findings of this study, social opportunities and threats are the most significant challenges for HR. The HR unit should also focus on issues such as virtualization of work and work environment, extending the degree of external environment support for the employees, restructuring jobs, dealing with health, psychological, economic, and internal challenges. Conclusion. In dealing with the coronavirus, HR managers should pay special attention to components such as virtualization of work and work environment, support of the external environment for employees, restructuring of jobs, meeting health and psychological requirements and dealing with social, economic, or intra-organizational challenges.