Employment Industry News
Leading in a Tough Economy
May 2009
Tough economic times create tough challenges for HR professionals and managers. How can costs be cut without hampering productivity and morale? How can communication efforts be bolstered to ensure employees are sufficiently engaged? How can difficult decisions be implemented with minimal disruption and negative impact?
When the news media constantly broadcast reports of layoffs, bankruptcies and business closings, employees are understandably on edge. Never has the need for open communication and opportunities for feedback been greater. You really need to ensure that employees are being kept up-to-date on issues that affect your organization and their paychecks.
Staying in Touch
- Spend time with employees. Hold town hall-type meetings to give employees an opportunity to ask questions and receive candid answers. Interact with employees on their turf work settings, break areas, etc. “Management by walking around” is more important than ever.
- Encourage senior leaders to be visible. When top management is out of sight, employees worry that something is going on.
- If something is going on, encourage leaders to be as forthcoming as they can about who, what, when, where, why and how. In the absence of information, employees will fill in the blanks — usually with the most-pessimistic speculations possible— and this could lead to some of your best people looking for jobs elsewhere.
- Offer plenty of avenues for feedback and input: one-on-one, old-fashioned suggestion boxes or new-technology forums like chat rooms, blogs or social networking sites.
- Communicate often, in many ways — once is not enough. Engaging in an ongoing dialogue with employees keeps you aware of what’s on their minds, and enables you to respond to concerns they have before misinformation causes serious problems with morale and retention.
Actions for Tough Times
Here are three key actions corporate leaders and managers can take to help weather downturns (according to research by The Forum Corp., a Boston consulting company):
- Make it safe for employees to raise questions. Leaders who admit they don’t have all the answers and ask for input empower their people to contribute their best ideas.
- Communicate authentically. Strong leaders acknowledge challenges and, by doing so, build trust among followers. Rather than being a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength.
- Make sure everyone is on the same page.When alignment on key goals is absent, performance suffers. Effective leaders frame an agenda and meet with key stakeholders to gain support and build commitment. Ineffective leaders let interoffice politics fester and hidden agendas dominate.
Temps Bring Strong Experience to the Table
Difficult as these times are — and they’re tough for everyone — there is one silver lining when it comes to finding good temporary employees: A lot of them are top-flight workers who bring a wealth of experience to their jobs.
Many of our temporary workers find themselves available because, in spite of their high levels of talent and ability, the organizations they worked for were unable to navigate the downturn. But when these employees come to work for you, they bring all the experience, ability and dedication they’ve developed in years of success in the workplace.