Your Competitive Edge During a Recession

Recently I spoke with a CEO at a high tech company and asked what actions his company was taking to retain its employees. The response was startling – nothing. His thinking was given the current economy employees should feel lucky to have a job! If there was ever a time employers should work hard to retain their A-players and keep them engaged it is now. Regardless of the economy, top performers can typically find work.

With the current economy every company needs to ensure they have an edge over their competitors to stand out from the pack. While companies may offer a similar product a key differentiator is often the employees who can make or break the customer’s experience through the product or service. Consider this. You and I have options to shop at various stores that offer the same type of merchandise but we select one store over another often based on the quality and value of the products combined with the service we receive. Your customers have those options too.

Beyond employee retention you want those employees who work for you to be engaged and productive. If they don’t feel valued they may not be working to their full potential. I was talking to an executive of a successful company recently about recruiting. She said she would rather leave a position vacant than hire the wrong person. Employees who have disengaged from their work and are not working to their full potential can be damaging to an organization. The point is you must take a proactive approach to both employee engagement and retention.

You may be thinking employee retention takes money. The short answer is it can, but it doesn’t have to. Most executives and business owners think that the way to an employee’s heart is through their wallet. Time and again, the literature on this topic proves money is rarely the answer that resonates with employee’s long term. According to a September 2008 article by Bill Leonard of the Society of Human Resource Management shows findings from IMR Research Group Inc, in Charlotte, NC found “business leaders are now recognizing the role employee engagement and loyalty plays in the financial health of a company. Employee engagement directly affects profitability, and you are wasting resources-both human and financial-unless you are focusing on the policies and practices that are going to give you the most bang for your buck.”

So what to do? IMR researchers surveyed nearly 2,000 workers throughout the United States and found that the key drivers of employee loyalty include employee empowerment for decisions, trust between management and employees, opportunities for professional development and active encouragement of creativity. When we begin an employee engagement project with our clients we start by speaking with employees individually and asking them a series of questions to better understand their perspective on the workplace. Is the job what you expected? What are the company’s strategic objectives? Tell me about communication with your supervisor, department, company-wide. You get the idea. You can certainly ask these and other questions of your workforce. We have found that clients who hire our firm to conduct these employee meetings get more comprehensive results. The reason is employees are sometimes fearful that if they are honest it will in some way reflect poorly on them and put their job in jeopardy. Further, the results we share with management are anonymous so employees are much more inclined to be honest when speaking with our consultants.

Hiring a firm to conduct these employee meetings sense a strong message to employees that employee’s input matters. According to Jack Wiley, executive director of Kenexa Research Institute, “People have a fundamental need to know how they are doing and what the future holds for them. It’s simply part of who we are. Organizations that understand this and have the process in place to make it happen have an advantage over their competitors. Not only are they going to outperform their competitors, but they are building a more engaged and committed workforce.”

While the benefits of an employee engagement and retention initiative do not occur overnight, if you implement such a program now, just imagine how much better positioned your company will be over that of your competitors when the economy turns around.