In times of boom and rapid change organizational strategists recommend that your key ingredient for successful business performance are your people and that the threat of losing them to competition looms large. Business writers and academics advise organizations to sharpen the focus on engaging your employees or face the risk of losing them [voluntary attrition..]
Attrition rates have come down considerable in the past year and a half since the threat of another slow down has raised its ugly head but, even in cases where there has been lesser degree of drop in attrition, it is more involuntary in nature [recession driven lay-offs, downsizing].
How do you deal with your people in time of economic downturns. Jobs will be hard to come by, attrition will drop. Should you turn the other way on people management as you have a lesser risk in downturn of losing employees. What can HR do in this situation? What should be the HR point of view?
One view of the HR fraternity is "Recession is a much more easier time for HR". Recession can be good time but not for the reasons by which the organization can squeeze the employees-ask more for every dollar; push for greater productivity at any cost; come up with more stringent work norms; put the fear of the devil taking away their jobs in the mind of employees; employees will cooperate more and not raise voices.
This is a risky way of dealing with your employees during a down-turn.
Hence the two things that are very important for a HR practitioner in these times is to understand how to align your business to the changing needs and how your people strategies should change based on this alignment.
A structured set of questions given below will help...
a) What is the implication of the current business context on my organizations strategy?
b) Given these implications how will it affect my employees?
c) What will the negative impact on employees and how should that be addressed?
e) What do I need to do so that when the sine curve changes direction and we are headed towards an upswing, employees who were with us through the down turn start loving the company so much that they can't think of leaving just for a few dollars more.
f) Leading from point e above the important question is "How do I retain my top talent after the down turn?" ; the risk is high that they will leave if you don't treat them well in the bad times.
g) What are the downside implications of tough actions taken during the down turn ; action such as lay off's , counselling out, letting go of poor performers and whatever be the other such actions.... The emotional impact does linger on and good times bring more problems when people are disconnected with the organization.
Attrition rates have come down considerable in the past year and a half since the threat of another slow down has raised its ugly head but, even in cases where there has been lesser degree of drop in attrition, it is more involuntary in nature [recession driven lay-offs, downsizing].
How do you deal with your people in time of economic downturns. Jobs will be hard to come by, attrition will drop. Should you turn the other way on people management as you have a lesser risk in downturn of losing employees. What can HR do in this situation? What should be the HR point of view?
One view of the HR fraternity is "Recession is a much more easier time for HR". Recession can be good time but not for the reasons by which the organization can squeeze the employees-ask more for every dollar; push for greater productivity at any cost; come up with more stringent work norms; put the fear of the devil taking away their jobs in the mind of employees; employees will cooperate more and not raise voices.
This is a risky way of dealing with your employees during a down-turn.
Hence the two things that are very important for a HR practitioner in these times is to understand how to align your business to the changing needs and how your people strategies should change based on this alignment.
A structured set of questions given below will help...
a) What is the implication of the current business context on my organizations strategy?
b) Given these implications how will it affect my employees?
c) What will the negative impact on employees and how should that be addressed?
e) What do I need to do so that when the sine curve changes direction and we are headed towards an upswing, employees who were with us through the down turn start loving the company so much that they can't think of leaving just for a few dollars more.
f) Leading from point e above the important question is "How do I retain my top talent after the down turn?" ; the risk is high that they will leave if you don't treat them well in the bad times.
g) What are the downside implications of tough actions taken during the down turn ; action such as lay off's , counselling out, letting go of poor performers and whatever be the other such actions.... The emotional impact does linger on and good times bring more problems when people are disconnected with the organization.
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