People as the centre of strategy
In her latest blog posting Some Things Never Change, the HR Bartender (Sharlyn Lauby) reports on the results of the latest Robert Half International survey, showing that “35% of senior executives felt that unhappiness with management is the top reason for losing star employees. This figure is up from 23% five years ago. (FYI – for those of you who might be thinking pay is the second reason…think again. It was fourth after advancement opportunities and lack of recognition.)”
Many reasons for low employee engagement and high employee turnover are given by companies, from unhappiness about having to accept lower pay during the downturn, to high career expectations. These may play a part, but often the perception of employees by management as being less important in creating a competitive advantage than product or service innovation and marketing strategy, is bound to send the wrong signals.
When management and senior leaders recognise that in today’s turbulent business environment, it is their people who have the potential to create that critical competitive edge that will see companies through this crisis, only then will they change their practices. Changing practices means honouring the untapped potential in all your people, maintaining training and development initiatives, and creatively coming up with ideas on how to place employees at the centre of your strategic plan.
Only then will businesses find that the downturn can be managed and overcome.
James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore
Tags: Employee motivation, HR Bartender, HR practices, HR Solutions, Robert Half International, Sharlyn Lauby, Training and Development
June 11th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
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