Strategies for Maintaining Effective HRM Practices during A Recession.

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by William Gunter0 views·Updated Dec 15, 2021
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  1. Hello,
  2. My name is William Gunter and my papers over strategies
  3. for maintaining effective human resource
  4. management practices during a recession.
  5. Why did I pick this topic?
  6. Well,
  7. I'm 40 years old and I can name three
  8. different economic downturns that has happened during my lifetime,
  9. the first being the late 19 nineties dot com bubble bursting
  10. The next.
  11. The 2008 housing crisis,
  12. which did have a personal impact on my life and my family's life.
  13. My eye and my wife both got laid off during that time
  14. And the current COVID-19 pandemic.
  15. With the way the economy is after the lockdowns
  16. and supply chain issues that we're currently experiencing,
  17. it's important to know what a recession is.
  18. The recession, put simply, is a decline in economic activity.
  19. A little more in depth explanation is that a recession
  20. is when a nation's economy experiences negative gross domestic product,
  21. rising levels of unemployment and falling retail sales.
  22. Unfortunately, recessions can lead to people losing their jobs.
  23. As you can see in this picture below,
  24. what impact does this have on a business?
  25. Well, impacts on the business can be multiple things,
  26. but I've put four different large impacts on all businesses right here,
  27. which is reduced cash flow,
  28. staffing reduction,
  29. a loss of demand on the product
  30. in marketing constraints.
  31. These kind of all go hand in hand that if a business has a reduced cash flow,
  32. they will not be able to pay for marketing or advertising,
  33. which could lead to a loss of demand of the product,
  34. which could lead to less cash flow again and
  35. having to reduce staff or potentially the business closing.
  36. That's you can see below.
  37. What role will HR have during a recession or issues that may be posed for HR?
  38. Well, as we've learned in our books,
  39. human resources executives are already being involved in strategy,
  40. strategic planning for the business.
  41. This is not going to change and actually
  42. be more important during an economic downturn.
  43. Human resources will have to work with other executives and leaders to come up
  44. with a plan which may involve changes to wages or benefits involve layoffs.
  45. Another role HR will have is to ensure job security.
  46. What I mean by this is that HR is going
  47. to need to communicate to employees that their jobs are
  48. secure and that they're not going to be at risk
  49. in having to look for jobs during these tough times,
  50. which will help employee morale and reduce gossip and reduce, hopefully,
  51. improve productivity and reduce employees stressed during these tough times.
  52. Now the most important function, in my opinion, I put in a separate slide,
  53. and that is communication to the workforce.
  54. Now,
  55. everything that I've read about hrs role in these
  56. tough times all agree that communication is the key,
  57. and I have to agree with what they have said.
  58. Uh, not just communication, but transparency in the communication is the key,
  59. as I put here to success.
  60. What that means is that HR needs to be able to communicate directly to
  61. the employees and let them know what the company is doing and why,
  62. which will help the employees accept any changes that are made
  63. and have a better understanding of what the company is
  64. doing To be able to survive these challenging times.
  65. What does leadership role
  66. and more importantly,
  67. how is H are going to address leaderships, problem solving and employee concerns?
  68. Well, this kind of all goes back to what we just talked about communication
  69. with human resources being the link
  70. directly to all communications with the workforce.
  71. It's important that leadership
  72. involved HR and any changes that's made in HR involved
  73. the workforce with the changes that are made as well.
  74. What I mean by this keeping them informed.
  75. It's extremely important that HR communicate any
  76. and all changes to the workforce that
  77. the leaders are making to be able to survive the pandemic with the business.
  78. Whether that is a change in wages change in benefits, a change in hours,
  79. a change in anything that a company will do to be able to survive
  80. HR can fulfill can facilitate two way
  81. communication between the leaders and the employees.
  82. That way, employees could speak directly to leadership,
  83. address any concerns they may have and even offer suggestions.
  84. And that way, leaders can also let them know what why the suggestions may not work,
  85. or they may get some valuable suggestion that they may be
  86. able to bubble up and get back to the employees.
  87. Employees will be able to think and feel that their voice is being heard,
  88. which will again help boost morale, which leads into the last categories.
  89. HR will need to be able to let the employees feel valued.
  90. Whether that's a recognition program of simply just
  91. sending emails with any kudos for employees,
  92. that may again boost morale, which will in turn
  93. possibly boost productivity,
  94. which will do nothing but help the business out of the situation.
  95. What are the current standards being in place since we are in the COVID-19 pandemic?
  96. Well, as you can see, uh, Covid,
  97. 19 is still raging anytime you turn on the TV and the economy is still in a downturn.
  98. So with what that means is that there are numerous
  99. valid current articles out there about what is being done,
  100. and they all agree.
  101. Just as as I stated previously,
  102. communication and transparent communication is the number one key.
  103. And that's the numbers standard that everybody is doing right
  104. now in HR to be able to address everybody's concerns.
  105. Another function of HRS to review the staff and eliminate non core employees.
  106. Um, that's unfortunate, but real
  107. strategy that needs to be in place to be
  108. able to ensure the survivability of the business,
  109. uh, retain top talent is an extremely important function.
  110. Uh,
  111. so that way the company can keep its product productive
  112. workers and not have to job search for talented people
  113. during a tough economic challenge.
  114. Planning for the recovery.
  115. The recession is not going to last forever. It's important for a plan to be in place
  116. that the company can have to be able to be productive once a recession is done
  117. and be able to hit the ground running, so to speak.
  118. Final thoughts
  119. I just wanted to address again that communication is the number one key
  120. the human resource needs to do to be effective through a recession.
  121. Uh, communication with transparency again, just everything that I've read,
  122. that I have to agree that that is the number one thing that needs to be done
  123. to ensure that human resource management can still be effective
  124. through the recession and again that ensure the company's survival.
  125. Communication is so important.
  126. Uh, anecdotally,
  127. or human resources department at my
  128. current company communicated almost every other
  129. day with any change in anything that we may have heard any news
  130. of potential laws or covid policies, everything was communicated, and I can say,
  131. at least from my experience,
  132. it did nothing but help our situation and help make us
  133. feel a little more at ease with what was going on.
  134. That concludes my presentation.
  135. I hope it was insightful.
  136. I appreciate it. Thank you.