The tough get going during tough times

Yes, that's true folks.....Its tough times for India Inc and organizations old and new are facing business uncertainty and the prevailing tough economic situation like never before. Attrition is down, Jobs are few, travel and recreation budgets have crunched or disappeared....but what are you doing as a HR leader...

Start with looking at your own spend and headcount: Its not business as usual and you should take a hard look at that flab you have in the recruitment teams, HR operations and everywhere else in your team. Its time to be lean and mean......and this is not meant just for your business guys. If no one asked you to re-look at your team budgets (headcount and spend) you better start before someone does.

Attrition is down: Good news and bad.......yes the number has gone down, but have you looked at the quality, I mean like who exactly is leaving and who is not......When the economy is down and there are fewer jobs outside, your least effective and non performing employees find it more difficult to get a job outside and stick around. Your top performers who always had it good still find the jobs. You need to start working on having stronger measures to nudge the non-performers out.

Take a hard look at your communication: While you wont see too many people leaving you now because of the job market, their motivation may be down due to uncertainty over job security or pipeline of work. Times like this need more focus on communication. There is lot of news (good and bad) floating around and you would want to ensure that the right messages reach your employees and you quickly address the bad news with tact and swiftness.

Tell your leaders to work on his body language: Your leaders might be the most impacted by this situation but they cannot walk around looking like heavens have fallen.....employees look up to them for assurance.

Keep your flock engaged: Your team is also prone to all the pitfalls of this situation and while you do all you can for the business you need to focus on your team and their engagement.

I am sure there is plenty of other things you should re-look so, go on get back to work!
Here is a good post I came across that talks about good things that happen to HR during recession.......http://www.workforce.com/section/01/feature/25/51/04/index.html