Human Resources Issues for Senior Management
Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/605961
14/CANADIAN HR STRATEGY and what you need to have. So you're creating poor morale in the people left behind, insecurity in the people left behind, and you're not positioning the organization for growth." And since so many sectors are cyclical, there should be no sur- prises when the cycle repeats it- self, she says. So employers should really be thinking through how to plan for it, how to ride through the storm, in a strategic way. "In particular, it's making sure most critically that your critical talent doesn't become di- luted and watered down," says Plotnick. Employers have learned from past cycles and many have been trying to deal with a workforce reduc- tion in a more strategic way this time, says Chris McNelly, CEO of the Human Resources Insti- tute of Alberta (HRIA) in Calgary. That being said, tempo- rary layoffs have become perma- nent layoffs as the recovery stalls. "What is potentially disastrous for an organization is if they sim- ply, unilaterally cut 1,000 positions without any regard for the individuals in those positions because they may be losing high- ly critical talent that could maintain their competitive advan- tage and maintain their sustainability within that sector." Some employers may not give themselves enough time to strategically assess talent and instead they simply say, "We've hit a critical point, break-even is no longer there, we need to reduce by 500," he says. Temporary layoffs can be a good strategy, but to do them correctly, it's a good idea to rst ask for volunteers, says Shari Angle, vice-president of special projects at Adecco in Toronto, as there may be employees who are happy to take time off to spend with family. "The more involved the workforce can be in the decision- making, the more they will adopt and accept the change and 'We're all in this together' mentality as opposed to 'I was forced to do this,'" she says. "My recommendation on that would be to make sure that there's some work done in the back-end to really set out who's most important: 'Who's critical to help us overcome what we need to overcome in this period of time, how many people from each group can we realistically afford to have laid off at this "IT'S NOT JUST SLASHING AND BURNING AND WILLY NILLY TAKING OUT LAYERS." MASS LAYOFFS Measures such as layoffs and pay cuts can make sense, but it's about really thinking through the process clearly, says Plotnick. "What we've seen in the past were entire layers of organiza- tions who were removed, and that might have allowed cost sav- ings in the short term but what we're nding now is that people are looking to accelerate growth of leaders because there's a whole lack of that middle management people that were ready to step into more senior-level jobs because that's where the cuts happened. "It's not just slashing and burning and willy nilly taking out layers, it's really looking through 'What do we need post-recov- ery?' making sure you have that lens on 'Who are the critical people and the talent and the skills that we must have in place in this organization?' and retaining those." Mass layoffs are basically robbing Paul to pay Peter, says Plotnick. "Not only do they have profound effects around career paths and create the holes in leadership that are costly and dif cult to ll in the future when you need them… The focus really does become on survival, both personal and organizational survival, as opposed to focused on recovery and growth and innovation PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK