People feel Valued when Invested in!
“We have frozen our learning & development budgets”. “We do not know whom to upskill or provide training for in these times”. “We will not invest in leadership development in 2020”.
These are statements often heard from HR and other leaders across organisations in these uncertain times. At best, a few virtual pep-talk and ‘crisis leadership’ webinars are arranged to keep employees engaged.
It baffles me to think how or why these blanket ‘cuts’ were decided. People and teams are the real assets when running a successful organization. Investing in their future is the key to achieving larger goals. While downsizing or rightsizing teams may be necessary at times, slashing budgets that were meant to energise and motivate your top performers is a self-induced disaster in the making!
Over the last few years, innumerable conferences, panel discussions and books have been devoted to ‘future of work’ topics. While the focus then was more on artificial intelligence and smarter upskilling, they were also oriented towards creating leaner teams, adding gig workers and virtually connecting teams.
In the current scenario, organisations must grow their sensitivity around the welfare of the people and teams who are pinch-hitters or those who need to stay sharp and challenged. Apart from offering them new or additional roles and responsibilities, upskilling them on processes or technologies will be required to keep them effective and ensure their knowledge grows. These are hard skills.
What people need even more in such volatile times are softer ‘life’ skills. Emotional Intelligence, Conflict Management, Handling stress or crises, Adaptability, Impactful Communication, etc. are what make leaders, amongst women or men, whether young or experienced and across mid or senior levels.
Organisations that ignore these immediate needs will end up facing a far more complex issue of key talent jumping ship and will struggle to attract good talent. Beyond compensation, teams want to feel important in the organisation’s growth and want to know how much their leaders will invest in them, anew. Its only then people feel valued.
While tending to the garden, Leaders and HR need to be cautious not to weed out the blossoming flowers in a hurry!
Fractional CMO, LinkedIn Top Voice, Coach (ICF Certified), Author
4 年Marketing and HR are functions that always get impacted when in crisis. The first budgets that get slashed are from these functions while these are the ones that actually would have created the brand and the talent which got the company to where it is! However, I do feel this also gives an opportunity to coaches to be innovative in how they can still be of value to organizations while not undercutting too much.