According to the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus “the only constant in life is change” and going through a change like we are now is undeniably something we have to overcome. During this time of COVID-19 companies are rightsizing; forced to make tough decisions on who stays and what is essential to the team. As Lee Iacocca once put it, “In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.”. A good process is essential when putting together cross-functional teams (e.g. production – training – inventory – marketing – sales – customer service) to maintain high levels of alignment in the organization. Therefore, having to layoff good, hard-working employees to save costs in order to thrive, is a position companies must consider while simultaneously safeguarding their business operations during difficult times.
Unfortunately, the reality is that even in post-COVID-19, companies will have to look at their current resources and decide how to restructure because the economy will be in recession. While everyone is a vital component to an organization it is important to decide what critical talent you need to keep and what potential talent we must let go. Ultimately, how we treat both groups in the transitionary process will not only be vital to the core survival of the institution, but also a lesson in how individuals should be treated.
For these reasons, it is important to talk about using talent audits and corporate diagnostic tools to help in determining the potential strengths and capacity of key staff/teams, the mental health of each employee and how they will complement the corporate strategy. Furthermore, understanding how to maximize your resources by redeploying people and carrying out proper outplacement to mitigate employee and corporate stress is something that needs full attention.
Understanding the Corporate Potential & Capacity for Change
When rightsizing your operation, it is crucial to examine the current potential and capacity of your talent and how it will align with the reorganization strategy. Talent audits are an important measure used to get a baseline of your current team and can be used to help identify the employees’ potential bench-strength and capacity in the rightsizing and reorganization of companies.
Determining your bench-strength can be done through psychometric assessments which evaluate the inherent potential and capacity of your existing employees. When making decisions on rightsizing operations it is important to stress that past performance does not necessarily predict future performance especially when a change occurs. Accordingly, it is imperative that you have a baseline of your existing culture through a talent audit to better align the right potential and capacity into other roles.
Specifically, talent audits can be conducted to add value to organizations in order to:
- Provide statistical analysis of the attributes and characteristics of a group of individuals;
- Help identify the characteristics of individuals who are at different levels of potential;
- Provide a prescriptive analysis of the key strengths and synergies to build stronger teams.
The aforementioned provides a reference point to help in making strategic decisions on who might be the best fit to align with the corporate vision and reorganize the culture. Research conducted by the Self Management Group found that increased engagement within teams are directly correlated in identifying synergies within the organization, and how they can be deployed appropriately to maximize team performance.
Outplacement of Employees
In times of change, it is essential to treat everyone who worked with your organization with compassion and humility. Going through a talent audit using a psychometric assessment can provide career redirection strategies for those who are being let go. As such, the individualized candidate career management reports should be provided to exiting employees as a courtesy to help them with their new career search. Career management reports help to exit employees and provide an action plan for them to learn more about their strengths and how they can be deployed elsewhere to be successful.
Furthermore, anyone who is being let go will experience a certain level of personal stress, so it is vital to also offer them guidance on how to manage that energy appropriately. Self Management Group also recommends that companies offer a virtual support assessment such as the STRESSPOP™ (i.e., online self-help stress coping assessment) to manage through this time of change.
In order to maintain high levels of engagement in times of transition, it is imperative that companies carry out corporate diagnostics or surveys frequently to understand how to help people manage and navigate stress appropriately. Corporate diagnostics, like the CORPORATEVITALSIGNS™ survey offered by Self Management Group in partnership with the Canadian Institute of Stress.
- Provides current-state feedback to corporate decision-makers, focused by key stress indicators rolled up and broken out to corporate levels, divisions, and key staff groups as defined by corporate strategy; and
- Provides action recommendations to each employee from our confidential online assessment, highlighting those personalized steps to manage one’s energy at work to contribute more fully to their team’s performance.
According to a recent COVID-19 HR Pulse survey by Josh Bersin, several factors were found the be important to employees but two of them stood out for both HR professionals and employees:
- Mental/personal health
- Managing remote work
Given the current circumstances globally with COVID-19, both of these factors also line up to the research carried out by the Canadian Institute of Stress. Their research indicated there are three main pillars of mental health that are drastically improved by using corporate vitality diagnostic tools (i.e., CORPORATEVITALSIGNS™) regularly to monitor the pulse of the organization. Keeping a pulse on the organization to mitigate corporate vitality issues lead to improvements in the following three areas:
- 32% decrease in work stress
- 38% increase in work satisfaction
- 62% higher work engagement
Based on these current statistics, one can see how much of a role HR teams must play in safeguarding lasting success to make sure employees manage change appropriately. These surveys need to be done often and compared with previous analyses to remedy any future concerns. While “stress” and “anxiety” are the two words used frequently today by executives, what they are referring to operationally is the interactive effects of the three main pillars on the capacity to influence positive corporate change. A diagnostic tool like the CORPORATEVITALSIGNS™ can help in strengthening the capacity for change in ways that leverage what organizations are already doing right.
Mitigate Stress and Improve Corporate Initiatives
When redeploying current employees, it is essential to quickly identify situations where an individual’s or team’s devitalization may put a corporate initiative at risk and then collaborate in framing and implementing the best strategic solution. When redeploying teams or work (i.e., remote work in COVID-19) you must have an implemented safety measure that ensures stress does not erode productivity and mitigates the stress with strategic initiatives.
Understanding your key personnel is the first step to corporate development and redeployment. Next, is to ensure your redeployment strategy is healthy by alleviating stress in employees so they become more resilient and energetic as they seek out and enjoy the satisfactions offered by their work. Last, don’t forget about those you outplaced from the organization as they did fully contribute to building your business. It is always important to treat everyone with respect.
Based on these current statistics, one can see how much of a role HR teams must play in safeguarding lasting success to make sure employees manage change appropriately. These surveys need to be done often and compared with previous analyses to remedy any future concerns. While “stress” and “anxiety” are the two words used frequently today by executives, what they are referring to operationally is the interactive effects of the three main pillars on the capacity to influence positive corporate change. A diagnostic tool like the CORPORATEVITALSIGNS™ can help in strengthening the capacity for change in ways that leverage what organizations are already doing right.
Published by Robert A. Dougan, MA – SMG Talent Strategist