Plans for 2009- Engage Your Workforce!

So we have completed our first full week of 2009. What do you think? I see 2009 from a mixed viewpoint. On one hand we are facing some of the most difficult financial cirumstances in almost 100 years. On the other hand we have a newly elected President and perhaps a catalyst for action that we have needed for a long time.

I have had the "opportunity" to have many titles and roles to this point in my career. Perhaps the most accurate one has been that of change agent. I recognized a while back that maintaining the status quo doesn't play to my strenghts very well. Organizations seem to value my particular skills and contributions when they want to do something different. My experience has also taught me that change rarely comes without some kind of a significant catalyzing event- positive or negative.

I would like to think that if nothing else 2008 has left us with a clear indication that many of the things in the current "system" aren't working. I think in many cases we already knew that, there just wasn't enough of a compelling reason to change, so we didn't and our markets failed.

I see and hear a lot about hanging on to employees who may be concerned about job security and company stability and from employers saing this may be an opportunity to "upgrade" their current workforce because of the unemployment situation. I hear employers talk about their frustration with the "entitlement" mentality of some employees and employees complaining about management "spin". What that tells me is that before our bubble burst we were operating in a kind of mutual codependency- we didn't trust our employers all that much, but we weren't willing to push too hard. Employers really didn't want to spend the time "engaging" their workforce because it is hard work and you probably have to make some fundamental changes. How did that model work for us?

I am recommending to my clients that we use the current environment as a foundation for creating a new relationship with their employees, their customers, and their communities. Maybe now would be a really good time to examine that "engagement" thing. To build a relationship based on mutual trust, respect, and all that other "soft" stuff.

You might say that sounds pretty Pollyanna- OK, what's plan B? Why not now? The first elements of my compliance to commitment model are respect, responsibility, and information. You should notice something interesting about them- none of them involve parties, lavish budgets, or other "expensive solutions".

I read an article recently that said that we are losing $200 billion per annum in the U.S. to "presenteeism". Presenteeism is where employees show up, but are operating at half or three quarter throttle because of personal issues, health concerns, poor morale or ineffective management. Yes, that number was $200 billion. At that rate we are peeing away the equivalent of the financial bail out three times every decade.

I guess since we seem to have the health care crisis, and unemployment, and world hunger and other stuff under control we really don't need that money.

You might recall that in some of my previous posts I have talked about the upside of engagement like increased productivity, reduced attrition, and increased customer satisfaction, think about the upside potential of recapturing 25 or 50% of those lost "opportunity" costs and putting it back to work.

I will tell you it won't be easy. I don't have a magic pill or a perfect solution. Plan B is to have the government "fix" it. So far I think we have spent one third of the bail out funds and we seem to have forgotten to get a receipt! Don't get me wrong, our situation is bad enough there is room for a new paradigm where corporations, government, communities, and individuals all participate.

So my plans are to try to do this this engagement thing- one client, one company, one community at a time. What are your plans?