Activities For Employee Engagement

[I]f the current recession turns out to be very long and deep and a business finds it must take further action, the fact that sharing the pain was tried first makes the next steps more palatable for all stakeholders involved, especially employees. For one thing, those who stay after one or more round of layoffs will be better equipped to mitigate the dreaded "survivor syndrome."

Our Founder and Chairman, Ken Lehman, gave this advice a little over a year ago in a Winning Workplaces editorial titled "Share the Pain." Since then I've blogged when I've found others concerned with how to improve employee engagement endorse this same strategy.

Last week a major player, Fortune magazine, came out in support of sharing the pain – specifically, going above and beyond to provide the softest landing possible for those you've laid off.

In their article HR outsourcing provider CEO Burton Goldfield recounts how one of his clients invested only $5,000 for two, half-day-long workshops for a good portion of his workforce that he was forced to let go within the last 14 months. The ROI on that money would seem to be well above 100%:

10 (60%) of the 17 participating employees had found new jobs just a few weeks after attending the company-sponsored workshops – helping to, as Goldfield says, "put food on the table for those who once slaved on your payroll." This reflects our view that Winning Workplaces are better for employees and the greater society.
This practice was also better for the business: Goldfield says his client told him that many of the remaining employees told the CFO how impressed they were that a company that small would take a step like that. Guess what? That's going to make it much more likely that they won't bail – even if the economy takes a bigger dip and more team sacrifices need to be made. This means the CEO's investment of $5,000 can be worth many multiples in terms of the costs saved if they needed to recruit to replace less committed workers who would leave. (The cost to replace an employee has been found to range from 50% to 150% of his/her salary.)

Have you needed to engage employees in sharing the pain in your firm during this recession? If so, how did it help them and your business?