The pandemic period that shook organizational stability was also able to inspire managers to develop human resource competencies. This article aims to analyse how private school managers at Central Java, Indonesia take advantage during the pandemic to develop human resource competencies. The approach used is qualitative phenomenology. Data were collected through observation, interviews with informants and also from references. The results indicate that school principals of the Islamic Private Schools can take advantage of the pandemic period to provide education and training, especially in ICT and redesigning teaching preparations. Besides that, it can also change the mindset of employees to adapt alterations and have high motivation at work, but still adhere to health protocols. This may be difficult when the training is carried out under normal conditions. The valuable lesson from this study is how school principals can perform human resource development in a fully-risked condition of pandemic.