Employee Engagement during Recession

The effect of recession is getting very tougher and tougher on the organizations day by day. There is lot of uncertainty in business that comes in with recession. 

 

Of course, the Business Heads and Organizational leaders in India seem to be confident of improving business however, every other thing is taking more time than anticipated. Moreover, the maximum utilization pressure is ripping apart the peace left among the employees. What I see is not the absence of business opportunities. It’s the inflexible skill sets. An organization can carry the bench cost of non billed employees when they are not billing during good times, however, when economy collapses every other paisa becomes very important. Now, the point is how long does a company decide to carry the load? One month, six months, one year,,,. how long? There will be one point in time, sooner or later… the push and pull game starts.

 

Recession brings in lot of unpleasant times as well. It demands a lot of flexibility and tough mindset. It is not very easy to change projects, change domains, change cities and sometimes even lose jobs. Life really holds a great challenge. It’s really an unfortunate scenario the industry is facing! Most organizations may look at eliminating the low performers in the organization in this phase; this could amount to 5-10% of the employees. However, the mental stress and fear kills the remaining 90%. It is in this phase one can see the increasing frustration and lack of motivation among the employees.

 

This is something every organization may ignore or skip at this point in time in their busy schedules. The focus on increasing business makes them forget about the employees who help them build business during the good times. Hence, the focus should be to keep the employees engaged. Keeping them engaged in various trainings, IP related initiatives, fun activities to do, various non monetary rewards and recognitions, morale building activities, etc… Just keep them engaged and connected with what the organization is upto. I think this IS the right strategy this recession.

 

Who has to take care of this employee engagement? I am sure, all of you reading this are thinking it is HR. Well, partially yes. The Human Resource Partner will help run initiatives, drive motivation and help coordinate. However, the bigger responsibility lies on every leader in the organization. How one looks at ones team? How the spot appreciation is given? How is excellence looked at in the team? What technical initiatives can be taken… etc.

 

I think that recession is the best time to groom a better employee. You definitely don’t get this kind of time when we are running tight schedules. Hence, we should use this slow down to speed up employee engagement. This engagement is what makes an employee look up to us even during busy times later. So, the mantra is Engagement!