ACADEMIA Letters Humanism and Compassion Applied: Post-Pandemic Conditions for Adaptation in Public Organizations Maria Lungu, Florida Atlantic University Reformative practices will shape public administration’s response to the dysfunction caused by COVID-19. The disconnect in public administration practices results from a lack of devel- opmental humanistic and compassionate models and frameworks. Adaptations of compassion models with emotional contagion are proposed as operative or mediative structures in public management post-pandemic. COVID-19 emerged as an unknown disruptor in the last quarter of 2019, with initial at- tention focused on Wuhan, China (Gaynor & Wilson, 2020). Consequently, the virus spread at an alarming rate, resulting in a myriad of social, political, and economic issues across the globe (Lungu & Lungu, 2021). Much of the efect of COVID-19 both symptomatically and within public administration remains unknown. However, both anecdotally and in the liter- ature, there is a stifing of organizational growth, an increase in discomfort, and restricted economic activity (Wang & Zhang, 2021; Riggs, 2020; Gaynor & Wilson, 2020). Consid- ering the initial misperception of how to respond to COVID-19, industries were delayed in recognizing the exponential threat to work structures and worker morale (Blankenberger & Williams, 2020). Public administrators were (and remain) unsure of how to respond to pro- tect their respective ecosystems. This presents the opportunity to develop new models and workplace standards that humanize worker experiences. Public organizations by nature have diferent strategies and leadership perspectives than the private sector. In understanding public administrative capacity, societal assessments will be monitored closely over the next few years. The central questions will be whether there will be resilience and success or whether countries and organizations will delve into disconnect- edness, unable to recover (Van der Wal, 2020). Academia Letters, June 2022 Corresponding Author: Maria Lungu, mclungu13@gmail.com Citation: Lungu, M. (2022). Humanism and Compassion Applied: Post-Pandemic Conditions for Adaptation in Public Organizations. Academia Letters, Article 5644. 1 ©2022 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0