Recession fatigue in the workplace

Loyalty among employees toward their employers may be suffering from some erosion in Canada, according to a report released this morning by IPSOS Reid. After reading the press release, I was reminded of a similar report from earlier this year, which pointed-out that a chasm that can exist with how happy employees are, and how happy their management thinks they are. That release came from Salary.com.

Evidence supports the notion that among workers, recession fatigue is setting in.

In an economy littered with layoffs and cutbacks, employees are likely to feel angst over lost co-workers (some of them perhaps good friends), and a heavier workload for the same (or perhaps less) compensation.

In some jobs, these conditions are aggravated by the fact that many employees are "recognized" based on sales or customer service benchmarks. With sales suffering across many sectors, and with fewer customers to work with, it has become difficult for employees to hit those benchmarks; thus, they're not receiving the recognition they once did. Under those circumstances, it’s only natural for a job to seem less fulfilling… or for the employee to feel like that, “it is going to be difficult to succeed.”

Implications: Beyond the casual exchange of greetings in the hallway, or anecdotal belief that your employees are happy… what do you know for sure about job satisfaction in your company? (Companies often review employees; how long has it been since you invited employees to review the company?)

Have your incentive and recognition programs been adjusted in response to the changing environment? If not, should they? (Some companies get a lot of mileage from using perks like theme park tickets, concert tickets, and sports event tickets to reward people for hitting certain sales or customer service benchmarks. What would an excellence contest look like in your organization?)

Have you held a managers meeting, lately, about keeping the staff motivated? (Is an internal workshop on the topic warranted?)

Even if the recognition is a certificate instead of an engraved plaque, or a dinner-for-two instead of an elaborate vacation… it’s important to credit people for the success of a company. Will everyone be satisfied with these smaller tokens? Perhaps not for the long term, but they might buy you some time… until revenue improves and more elaborate rewards are once again affordable. And workers are likely to appreciate that, even when times are tough, you recognize excellence. There’s never a wrong time to let your strongest performers they’re appreciated.

Mike Anderson