Managing Tough Times With An Eye On The Future

With news of lay-offs, redundancies and business closures rising, it’s not surprising that many employees  are becoming nervous about what the future holds for them.  Unfortunately worried employees do not make for productive, creative, (calculated) risk taking entrepreneurs, which is just what businesses need if they are to not only survive a recession, but flourish on the other side.

Businesses need to be aware of the mood within their organisations, and managers need to be aware of their influence on morale and their responsibility in keeping it high.  Motivating people in tough times is harder than motivating a team that has easily accessible opportunities, but this is the time that managers earn their salary by keeping their teams focussed on the right things, and build their confidence and sense of employability. 

Over the years we’ve worked with a number of organisations who have made restructuring decisions and as a result, redundancies.  One defining characteristic of how successful those organisations are after any such restructuring is how retained employees feel their colleagues who left the business were treated.  Where they feel the treatment was poor:

• people were unfairly selected
• payments were handled incorrectly
• promises were broken
• employees were seen off by security with a signature, rather than by managers with a thank you

the level of subsequent attrition of talented employees was high and the morale, and therefore productivity of remaining employees was low.  Where employees felt that everyone had been treated with dignity and all administration was handled efficiently, company loyalty was higher along with motivation.

If you’re in the position of making redundancies, make sure you think through the effects of the small decisions around goodbyes and administration with an eye on future motivation.  Work hard to ensure that people leave your business ready to recommend it to another potential employee and where possible help people to make a positive fresh start, with a programme like Marketing Yourself Effectively.

Claudine McClean
T:  01789 734300
E:  claudinem@structuredtraining.com