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Adapting your HR practices in response to the current economic pressures will help your organisation remain cost effective, competitive and to exploit opportunities presented by adjustments to labour markets.1-Absence management If you have a higher than average level of sickness absence, reinvigorate your attendance management practices. Typically this will reduce absence by up to20%.2-Recruitment If you have vacancies, pursue and exploit the current labour market adjustments. There are big pockets of redundant workers with excellent transferrable skills and competencies.3-Employee engagement Provide clear leadership and direction. Engage with your people in periods of change. If you are making redundancies, devise a strategy to ensure those who remain continue to be engaged.4-Learning and development When evaluating L&D ask if all activities remain current, what new skills and competencies are required for next12-24 months. Consider more cost effective forms of delivery such as developing in-house trainers or e-learning.5-Pay and benefits Are your benefits affordable and in-line with your employment market competitors? Many employers are reviewing occupational sick pay entitlement, contractual hours and annual increase mechanisms.6-Redundancies Ensure your procedure and selection criteria enable you to retain employees with the skills to deal with the challenges over the next12-18 months. Consider alternatives such as sabbaticals, secondments and part-time working.7-Retention As human behaviour generally becomes more risk averse in turbulent times it is likely less people will consider a voluntary job move. Review the impact of this change on your planned recruitment and training budgets/activities.
Thank you very much all of you for your valuable input in answering this question.
Kind Regards
Zafar Iqbal
In today’s world the economic situation is very volatile. Any one at any level can get a pink slip. If the company is going through times , sales and profits are going down and the manager says everything is rosy his or her employees would not believe the manager. The manger should speak the truth and do not hide anything from the employees. There should not be any false expectations. The people now a days are very well informed and they would not go for that kind of rosy talk. But then the manager also has to make the company work. He cannot afford to lose all his staff immediately. Also the company may also survive after downsizing. If that is the situation he should invest heavily in training of the employees who have to be kept and compensate those retrenched. Those who are to be retrenched should be informed beforehand so that they can try finding another job. During November Christmas time when the call pressure is high more people are recruited and many of them are retrenched in the slack season in the BPO industry.
tough times or good times your strategy must be aligned with the company's goals and mission statment.
you must keep adding value and equity to your company.
run your department effeciently and effectively.
Very well explained Zafar.
The management should revise their strategies and future plans according to the market movement and ensure to sustain their reputation and loyalty to their customers and empliyees.
Presently, it is a fact that we are really passing through a tough economic crisis. But, it does not mean that the organizations will switch off all their internal development /improvement activities. More so, the present context of crisis is not a permanent one and obviously, situation will improve. In my opinion, development of HR Strategy is a continuous process and organization should keep on working also in the implementation part of it, so that, it commensurate with the present HR trend easily. What management should do that minimize/ curtail the extra expenses on unnecessary items? But, do not practice with the HR strategy as it helps the organization in keep going further.
1. Cost effective strategy (Avoid unneccessary cost)
2. Job sharing.
3. Golden handshake.
4. Stop increment.
5. Leave without pay.
6. Voluntary retirement.
7. Stop recruitment.
8. Stop hiring external trainer for training & development.
N doubt the economic condition in country and companies are getting tough but simultaneously organizations are updated their P&L on positive side and for those who are facing tough time are curtailing various facilities. Being in HR the most common cutting side has been learning and development cost as the management considered is as major expense without understanding its unseen benefits. We had been experienced in many organizations where gratuity was end and the rate of increment was reduced. Organization must consider to reduce the wastage of resources which has been incurred in various form of expense, the lavish dinner must be turn down into office based dinner, utilities is of the major cost in offices which could be reduced via effective utilization. Multiple initiatives could be taken but all depend on realization from top management and must prove it as led by example.
How to adapt your HR strategy in tough economic times?
My compliments for the answers of Mr. Khan, Hiron and Zafar... it is all a mix of
1. "does manager understand the severity of the situation of he still fights for his own department with giving his employees the best bonuses as if there is nothing to be concerned with? 2. what kind of strategy the business needs to follow: cost cutting, restructuring; downsizing Comp & Benefits; manpower analyze, cutting external costs with third parties/ direct hires ; boost productivity and reduce inefficiencies, downsize succession planning and number of MD- even you know that this will hurt ; start up outplacement activities.
