People First – Are They Really?

Rating: No Rating

Warning: I’m about to retreat to that special place – My Soapbox! I’ll try to keep it brief however brevity has never come easily for me, especially on topics I'm passionate about.

Why is it when times get tough, companies have a tendency to cut back on their people initiatives? If there is someone out there who thinks this makes good business sense, I want to hear from you. I know the economy is in the toilet and in most businesses’ margins are shrinking… However how can companies weather the storm without well trained, highly motivated people?

I’ve always believed that a company’s internal brand is just as important as its external brand. We have to place those who work for us on the same level of importance as those who buy from us. While price increases have been inevitable, you don’t see huge marketing machines like Apple, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Nike eliminating the key elements to their consumer brands.

Looking at their internal brand, I believe decision makers must ask themselves “What are the key components of our internal brand?” In other words what do we offer that our employees go home and brag about to their spouse and their friends? While conventions, planning retreats and other perks are an important part of the mix, during a downturn I think employees understand when these culture building events get modified or go away. However, I can’t come up with a good excuse for eliminating or cutting back on training and people development just because the economy is bad. Heck I could argue that companies should be “beefing up” their people initiatives during this time of stress and anxiety. Don’t you think now is the time to teach and inspire people to improve their skills as leaders, innovators and motivators? Is there a better time than now to encourage managers to get out of their comfort zones?

Alright, I’m done and proud of myself because that was relatively brief. I feel better now…

Comment

You need to be a member of talent revolution to add comments!

Join talent revolution

Comment by Andy Swingley on August 30, 2008 at 6:46pm: Bill, you already know that you and I are in 100% agreement on this topic. I think the cuts are made because the boss can sleep at night saying, "Our people will just have to do more because there is less" The organization looks at it like this, there is only so much money, they just "have to".

As you know, there are two kinds of people in the world, those that develop others and see the importance of that process and well....those that don't. When one of the "those that don't" is the boss, the rest is well, history, if you know what I mean.

Comment by Bill Campion on August 28, 2008 at 7:54pm: Thanks folks, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. Amanda, glad to hear you were able to preserve your budget in the midst of budget cuts. Keith interesting comments about Rosenbluth travel. Judy, I know margins are getting thin I just don't think companies can cut their way to prosperity!

Comment by Keith Bernhardt on August 28, 2008 at 2:04pm: This is a great topic. I could talk forever on this one.
Recently, I saw where a tv station was laying off some of its "talent" , but at the same time, was spending money to recruiters to find people for their behind the scenes operation. This makes no sense to me. The interesting thing is, that the on air people that got laid off, actually had the producer and director
experience. So, in my view, the station's management could have saved money and just had the on air people be the director.

Anorther case involved a popular radio personality. She had been a well known voice on the airwaves. Well, the station decided to replace her with an intern ! Nothing against interns, but, from what I understand the situation was
not handled very well; leaked to the press before the personality knew about it.

There was a book written several years ago by Hal Rosenbluth, who was CEO of
Rosenbluth Travel. The book is called "The Customer Comes Second" .

It is a very motivational book.a Mr Rosenbluth explains that in order to have good customer respect, you must first respect those who are representing
your company or organization. Get their feedback and ideas. They may have
some thoughts that would prevent them from being laid off, if it comes to that.

A side note about Rosenbluth : He never referred to the staff as employees, but rather "associates." The associates were the backbone of the company.
Incidentally, Rosenbluth Travel recently sold to American Express.

Hopefully, American Express has or will adopt some of Rosenbluth's beliefs and visions.

Comment by Amanda on August 28, 2008 at 12:53pm: Last year we had to cut over $100,000 from our training budget, HOWEVER, we fought long and hard to protect the $$'s that were going to continue to develop our people. I am happy to say that the company is now seeing the results of not cutting our development budget and I have a feeling this year we won't have to work so hard to continue our programs.

I have always been intruiged as to why we feel the need to cut the things that make people feel important, part of the team, or simply worthwhile. Cutting these types of programs from any company sends the message that anyone is replacable and you aren't important enough to spend money on keeping.

I have been shown just how important your inner core of people are...they continue to move your business forward, but this only happens when we continue to develop them.

Comment by Michael Henshaw on August 27, 2008 at 8:00pm: Amen, Bill! I am with you on this subject and happy to say that we here at Davidson do a pretty good job of keeping up our people development no matter what. I have spent a lot of time over the summer looking at cost cutting measures and have managed to convince my superiors that spending money on training and professional development will actually save us money. It reduces turnover and helps us keep skilled people who know how to look for ways to help us cut costs.