UPDATE: For an HR Managers perspective on the Recession, I have written a summary on a new post.
Demand for HR increases with a recession looming
In this spring and summer of 2008, the northern hemisphere has been in a mild panic: fuel and food is increasingly expensive, banks and financial institutions are struggling to meet their commitments, and recession seems in the offing. That feels depressing, doesn’t it?
I’ve just done a quick search on Google Trends of what we, the citizens, are saying. Pop a few terms in yourself. What patterns do you see?
- Talk of recession rose sharply in January 2008 and has leveled off.
- There has been a lot of talk about lay offs but less about job losses. Semantics possibly, but also talk about what management does to us rather than what we experience?
It makes sense that people are more interested in HR when job losses are in the offing. This pattern seems to be more pronounced in India and it is not possible to tell whether India is creating the global trend by force of numbers, or creating the trend by the direction of its attention, or simply the place with the most pronounced pattern.
The role of HR during a recession
Though it is an important concern, I am not particularly interested in whether there is a recession or not. What concerns me is that we cannot create a good future until we can imagine it.
And I am concerned about the role we in HR play in helping people imagine a positive future. People come to us when they are in trouble and feeling negative. People come to us when they cannot see a way forward. The graphs on recession, leadership, HR, hope and strategy show that people are not even looking for hope, strategy and leadership when they are looking for us!
Our key task
The challenge, for us, is that emotion is highly contagious. Natural empathy will allow us to be infected by our clients’ gloom.
But they don’t want us to share their gloomy predictions. They want positive action from us. They want us to advise them and to act effectively on their behalf. This is what concerns them.
- What are their options and what can the firm do to help them?
- What could we do with our skill base that we haven’t thought of?
Practical steps to positive HR in gloomy times
So if we are likely to reflect and perpetuate the gloominess of our clients, how can halt this process and restore a positive, forward looking, strategic atmosphere?
Here are three practical suggestions.
- Make emotional R&R mandatory for the HR team.
Budget part of the day, part of the week, and part of the month for them to recover from toxic emotions and to restore their sense of what is “good and true, better and possible”. Allow frequent “walks in the woods”.
- Increase your budget for strategic thinking (not tactical response) and engage the organization in thinking through positive futures for all its staff.
After all, a firm that is healthy and thriving should be able to imagine positive futures for all the skill sets used in their industry.
- Increase your budget for calming down line managers.
Stress causes defensiveness. We try to control what we have and imagination flies out the window. Stressed managers will quickly create a downward spiral.
And because supporting stressed people is extremely hard work, look after yourself.
Why I am positive
The positive news is that people are generally active and focused rather than passive and reactive. People are less interested in abstract concepts like “recession” and much more interested in “what they are going to do”.
For young people, recession is not a bad memory. They weren’t here during the last one. A minor economic downturn is simply an adventure: something to be explored, something to be understood, something to be conquered and something to be enjoyed in the company of fellow travelers.
My call to action
My call to action: Add an explicit positive agenda to your HR now.
- Give your staff resources to recover from negativity.
- Up the time spent on strategic HR and don’t stop until you have a positive vision for everyone in the company.
- Work with senior managers. When they are glum, they make everyone else glum, who then make them even more moody!
And make sure you have your quote of “walks in the woods”, positive mentors, simple pleasures and good home life.
Are you looking for a mentor or are you available to mentor an HR Manager trying to implement positive HR?
UPDATE: For an HR Managers perspective on the Recession, I have written a summary on a new post.
