Top Leadership Priorities in Tough Times March 04, 2009 Right Management poll reveals most crucial leadership practices for current crisis
By Jeanie Casison
What is the best leadership practice to help organizations realize business goals in a less than rosy economic environment? According to a new Right Management poll of senior leaders and human resources professionals across North America, engaging employees to ensure organizational alignment and commitment ranks as the highest with more than half (51 percent) of respondents confirming its significance.
"While other practices were noted as important, none came close to the importance of engaging and aligning employees," says Steve Cohen, Ph.D., senior vice president of Right Management, the Philadelphia-based talent and career division of Manpower. "While it is critical to keep employees engaged, aligned and focused through the distractions and uncertainty of the current economic turmoil, equally important is recognizing the need to keep employees who have been impacted by change or restructuring engaged and performing at high levels. These individuals are often faced with the loss of colleagues, uncertainty about their own future, as well as additional responsibilities with fewer resources."
Following engaging employees, other effective management methods from the Right Management Poll include clearly defining roles and expectations (21 percent), developing the current skill base and capabilities within and organization (15 percent) and making efficient and informed personnel decisions (13 percent).
As to how employers can better engage their employees, Cohen suggests implementing two key strategies.
"First don't lose sight of the value of interpersonal relationships and the need to have fun. Our relationships with colleagues play an important role in our overall satisfaction and engagement levels. You still need to keep jobs fun, interesting and stimulating," he says. "Second, in tough times it is critical to be able to execute even more effectively—do more and better with less. So the strain put on leaders in difficult times is being able to balance the demand for more effective execution while establishing a stimulating, interesting and fun work environment. The good news is that preparing a workforce in this manner of balancing the two will bode extremely well for organizations on the other side of the recession."
RSS
