When you treat your employees well, they will treat their customers better (this not only improves the employee satisfaction and morale but also the customer satisfaction)
The simplest way to improve morale would be to tell them that they need not worry about their jobs and that it is secure. But for this, you need to make a list of employees who you surely want in your organisation irrespective of recession.
How this can be done??
- Personalized e-mail form the CEO asking the employees to feel secure about their future in the organisation.
- Telling them that the company does not believe in cost cutting by slashing employee salaries. And Empowering them by asking them for suggestions to do cost cutting at which other avenues.
- Communicate as much information about the organization as you can to all of your employees, regardless of their position. Throw any notion of “need to know basis” out the window and give them all the info you can about every aspect of what’s going on. This would include discussing the financial position of the company, present and the future
- Talk to them one-on-one about their role in the organisation. Tell them that they are an important cog in the wheel of success of the organisation. Make them feel that they are Indispensable to the organization E.g. When an employee completes a project, handles a difficult customer, or comes up with a solution to a problem, tell them, “I just don’t know what we’d do without you! We are so fortunate that you work here!”
- Chart out a career path for them in the organisation. This will make them company loyal and feel secure as well
- Appreciation: nothing can give a boost to employee morale more than appreciation from his senior and that too in the presence of his peers. E.g. During staff meetings, lead rounds of applause for individual and group successes that have taken place since the last meeting. Here, a non-cash compliment gives more boosts than mere handing over cash reward. And since non-cash benefits cannot be quantified, so there is no question of employees comparing and feeling there ahs been a bias
- Give a hard-working employee a new responsibility or ask them to head up a project or task force, or to evaluate a new idea and provide feedback. This would make them feel that they are required in the organisation
- An informal workplace where the hierarchy is immaterial. A conscious effort can be made by the HR department to make everyone feel equally important by removing hierarchy.
- There can be no better time to invest in employees. Cross-functional skills can be given by training since the job gets redundant and not the employee. The experience of the employee can be used at other place which gives flexibility in the present and so also in the future.
- By doing this, the focus can be more on work in a profit centre by shifting them from a cost centre
- Providing positive leadership: leading from the front and setting an example. E.g. Vikram pandit, Citibank CEO taking just $1 as salary and no bonus so that there need not be cut in employees pay
- Financial planning: finance employees will have intractions with the employees and do their financial planning regarding savings, expenses and investments
- Acting as fund managers: Treasury dept. can act as fund managers for the investments of the employees which can be pooled together. This though will be Optional
- Increasing the notice period from one month to three months. This may seem negative but what we are telling the employees that even if they are laid-of, they have a cushion of salary till they find another job
- Also having a talk to employees who might be sacked that the HR dept. will search jobs for them with other sister concerns or vendors wherever possible. This will tell the existing employees that they are being cared for and looked after.
Conclusion: the way an organistion treates its employees in tough times , says a lot about who stays with the company in good times
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