Difficult decision during rocky money times

By Melissa Busch

News articles and research studies from firms including Gallup, Deloitte, Towers Perrin and many others confirm three common issues among employees in this recessionary economy:

Survivor’s guilt

1) Those remaining on the payroll after a round of layoffs often feel guilty about surviving the ax. This guilt distracts them from the task at hand. These employees typically need additional reinforcement of the value of their work to help them justify their status in the group.

More work, less motivation

2) The survivors also are paying close attention to how management handles the layoff and subsequent redistribution of the work. With more tasks on each employee’s desk, managers need a way to encourage strong individual performance while reinforcing priorities based on ultimate corporate strategic objectives.

Rampant rumor mill

3) The inevitable rumors of additional layoffs or restructuring further contributes to productivity and motivation challenges. Teams often suffer the most with rumors fueling backstabbing and protection of individual tasks over team goals. A recessionary economy is precisely when companies need to get the most productivity out of fewer employees Company leaders are struggling with how to accomplish this when annual or performance bonuses and even pay increases are no longer in the budget. Roughly half of the HR executives from several hundred firms who responded to a Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) November 2008 survey reported wage freezes and bonus cuts were likely in response to the downturn. A similar study by Towers Perrin found nearly half of the 450 companies surveyed are likely to cut spending on pay and merit increases while 39 percent plan to cut annual bonuses and other cash incentives. At a fraction of the cost of cash compensation and bonuses, strategic recognition targets each of these challenges with mechanisms to acknowledge and reward performance, personal achievement, and team successes. The recognition program should also be used to reiterate core company messages such as key goals and the mission to keep staff focused on achievable targets. By using the tool to encourage team members in a stressful time, company leaders communicate clearly their commitment to the well-being and future of the employees. Deployed correctly, strategic recognition programs also become a scorecard for executives on increased productivity and the factors that are specifically driving that increase.

These tips were taken from the white paper “Maximize the Return on Recognition during a Recession” released by Southborough, Massachusetts-based globoforce, a provider of strategic employee recognition programs. For more information, visit www.globoforce.com.

Often the bearer of bad news, human resources employees can be the most feared and loathed people at a company.

And, for the last few years, thanks to a crippled housing  market, a debilitated job market and financial woes, they have had their work cut out for themselves. The United States seemed like it was on an economical journey to recovery, but it appears the road remains pretty bumpy. Though the unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent from 9.9 percent in May, most was due to the hundreds of thousands of people who weren't counted because they simply gave up looking for work.

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