"Who gossips to you
will gossip of you."
- Turkish proverb
|
|
|
Welcome
|
|
Your employees are talking, and not just between themselves.
The emergence of online social media means anyone can broadcast their thoughts and feelings far and wide, directly affecting your "employer brand."
These effects can be good or bad, but you can't address them - at work or online - if you don't know what they're saying.
I recently read about the Bernard Hodes Group, a company that scans thousands of blogs and social media sites, qualifies comments, and reports back to you the state of your brand online. Their audit puts the power back in your hands and allows you to quickly address the negative while shouting about the positive.
Curious about the importance of your online reputation? Or if you have one? Download their paper, "Top 10 Social Media Myths and Your Online Reputation".
Listening, knowing, and addressing workers thoughts and feelings is the job of every good leader.
 Les Gore |
|
Talk To Your People Before They Talk About You
|
|
In a climate when business leaders face what may seem like an unprecedented number of challenges, people can drop down the list of priorities.
 Talk with your team. They are looking to you for direction, leadership, assurance and honest dialogue. Economic downturns and workplace uncertainties are at epidemic proportions, and quite frankly, your employees are concerned and uncertain.
There seems to be a disconnect among many companies these days between knowing how irresponsible it is to ignore people priorities in tough times, and actually devoting time to them.
All too often when facing hard economic times, employee engagement, talent management and other employee concerns take a back seat to cost and risk management.
When Times Are Tough, It's People Who Make The Difference
Fortunately, most executives no longer accept this antiquated conventional wisdom. They understand that a time of economic turmoil is precisely when they have the most to gain from focusing on employees. If your workforce is distracted, anxious, disengaged or believe they've stalled in their careers (especially top performers), they aren't likely to do what's required to keep the enterprise moving forward and constructively deal with problems.
So what can leaders and managers do during the months ahead to close the gap between intentions and actions? What steps are critical to benefit both the business and the work force?
Here a list of five must-do's as outlined in an article in Workforce Management Online:
- Lead by example: Regardless of leaders' own concerns, they need to present a thoughtful, calm and authentic "face" to people in a period of crisis. It's the time for straight talk, for meaningful reassurance and for a clear vision and plan to get things back on track.
The companies that come through a crisis most successfully are almost always those that commit to frequent, open and honest communications with employees, no matter what else is going on or how tough the messages are.
- Think creatively about staffing: A common reaction to any economic downturn is to downsize to manage costs. But even if across-the-board staffing cuts meet cost reduction targets, they are rarely the best answer. Instead, consider how to deploy employees in creative and more productive ways to help reduce costs. For instance, are the best performers doing the highest-value work? Can underutilized workers move to other areas of the organization?
- Consider opportunities to "upskill" or upgrade talent: As companies consider or undertake layoffs - even targeted actions - the available pool of talented professionals should grow. This could be the time to add new skill sets or increase bench strength at competitive rates, especially with financial services professionals.
- Rethink compensation: Merit budget increases - rarely exceeding 4 percent over the last few years anyway - will likely decline in the general economic slowdown, making it harder than ever to retain the best people and reward performance through base pay increases. Profit reports suggest there will be fewer incentive dollars available for year-end or special bonuses across industries.
This is the time to make differentiation real in the company - identifying the high potentials and top contributors and ensuring they receive the lion's share of available compensation dollars.
- Stay close to key talent: In the current environment, it's more crucial than ever to keep critical staff engaged and productive. The good news, especially given budgetary pressures, is that pay itself has little to do with driving engagement.
Research consistently shows, engagement builds from emotional connections to the company and the nature of the work experience and environment. Keeping people at the company - and keeping them engaged - doesn't always require a big financial outlay, but it invariably involves an investment of significant time and attention, especially from senior leadership.
It's impossible to separate peoples' actions and performance from your company's results, the article adds. Financial performance is ultimately the sum total of millions of individual actions taken by employees to move the business forward.
Getting your people to take the right actions, with the right degree of energy and skill, is a core part of building a solid financial and operational foundation. Doing so just might get them to say good things.
|
|
Job Search and Career Coaching
|
|
|
If anyone you know is looking for a job, or wants to be well-positioned in the event of being let go, get expert, confidential one-on-one job search and career coaching from Les Gore.
Companies tell me it's a less expensive alternative to outplacement firms.
|
|
|
| Feedback |
|
If you would you like to comment about this article, or have ideas about future articles, please email me at les@execsearchintl.com.
|
|
Executive Search International