This is the third and final article that summarizes the conclusion from a join research report published by Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and the performance factory. You can download the complete research report for free.
Companies who haven’t prepared may survive the recession only to find themselves overtaken by their competitors as the economy gets back to normal. The question is: “How do I prepare my organization for recovery?”
Here’s a list of six tips that cover the people challenges.
1. Evaluate your execution capabilities.
Your execution capabilities will help your organisation to deliver the strategy and turn it into performance. However, in times of crisis, organisations often accidentally cut out some of the skills, processes, technologies, values and assets that make up these core competencies, causing an entire competency to weaken or even disappear. Think about the cuts that were made during the crisis and evaluate the damage done to the overall execution strengths.
2. Prepare to hire great people.
The labour market is still hibernating in most countries but spring is in the air. If you stopped investing in employer branding, this is the time to get going again. Also, make an inventory today of the people you will need and develop ideas for how to get them. You want to be in the front row when people feel secure enough to start looking for a new job.
3. Develop your employees.
Most organisations have cut their development budget drastically. And while this was often done out of necessity, it’s a situation that cannot last forever. It doesn’t mean going back to the usual training plan. In fact, it’s smart to re-think and improve the development approach in your organisation. It may be a good moment to review your development approach and see how you can do more with less. Most companies I know can reduce their development spending by 20-to-25 percent while simultaneously increasing quality by 10-to-15 percent. It just requires the right burning platform. And that’s not an issue in today’s business environment.
4. Decide today how you will monitor execution tomorrow.
You don’t want to hear from the accounting department six months down the line as to whether your execution programme is on track or not. You need real-time and leading (read: predicting) indicators that will give you early warning signs as to if and how you need to change course. And as each execution is unique, there is no fixed set of indicators that will work in every situation. So it’s important that you get into the habit of building and monitoring your own dashboard that is adapted to the needs of the specific execution challenge. So start building that dashboard today.
5. Find time.
How to carve out enough time to create capacity is a crucial question that needs an answer. Finding the time to do certain tasks seems to be the key challenge of the current times. Everyone is too busy. Everyone is running on their treadmills as fast as they can. But if people don’t have time available, they won’t be able to execute a strategy. So creating capacity to get things done is a major challenge and often requires not only prioritisation skills, but also solid negotiation and influencing skills to get things moving.
6. Manage stress.
For most individuals, this has been one of the most stressful periods in their business life. And quite a few of them are stretched to the limit, with burn-out risks just around the corner. When the economy picks up, your company will need to shift gears again, demanding that people go the extra mile. There is a risk that this could prove a push too far. Be aware of the impact that the crisis has had and continues to have on the energy levels of people in your organisation and take action to restore the balance before jumping into a new adventure.
