This month’s blog and newsletter topic is “restoring personnel integrity.” This means retaining the right kind of personnel that will continue moving your company to success and restoring relationships with personnel so they’re retained.
An unfortunate side-effect of the post-pandemic commercial economy is mass layoffs. Many of those laid off were highly paid, very productive staff that companies felt they couldn’t afford to keep once government subsidies, which had kept them afloat during the pandemic, had dried up.
These employees are now being forced to reinvent themselves. How could companies take advantage of this factor?
Crafting New Career Opportunities
Before the pandemic, which nobody could have predicted, there were company employees who had dedicated their careers to a single business for many years or even decades. They expected they’d be at that company for their whole career. The pandemic heavily impacted profits, and such high-salaried employees would have been laid off because the company felt they could no longer afford them—but because of government stimulus, companies kept these employees onboard. Once the pandemic ended and the stimulus payments were gone, though, these dedicated and productive employees were suddenly dismissed. It was a crushing blow to them, certainly not deserved for such longterm loyalty.
Many employees now have to reinvent themselves for the current market. It might even mean learning a whole new field or carrying over into an entirely different industry.
“Gardening”
Because some of these people had been employed with non-compete clauses in contracts, they couldn’t perform the same job for a different company for a specified time.
In some of the bigger companies, such people were paid severance, a practice called “gardening.” Since these people were laid off and not allowed to work, they were figuratively paid to go home and work in their gardens. For whatever length of time, they couldn’t take employment in their chosen field.
This, of course, could have come as either disappointment or relief. Some of these employees had been working hard for years without taking vacations, and now they could take some well-deserved paid time off.
Whether or not they were happy about it, there would come a time when such people would then have to reinvent themselves. They have to decide if they will try and remain in the same industry or learn a new one from the ground up.
Companies Assisting the Reinvention
Companies today must take such people into account. They should create an environment in which these talented personnel can see through a career resurgence.
If a person has had valuable experience in the same industry, give the person a chance to learn how it’s done in your company. It could be that, since their previous employment, the field has advanced or changed, and the person needs to understand and work with these changes.
Or, it could be that the person is seeking a whole new role, different from the one they had before. This is true reinvention. Since the person has demonstrated loyalty to an enterprise in the past, it would benefit a company hiring such people to accommodate them in learning new positions.
Company Culture
As described in another of this month’s articles, there is another factor, besides salary and benefits, that is very important when it comes to retaining personnel: company culture. This culture should include real appreciation for a well-done job and loyalty.
This could be especially important to people who were summarily dismissed from other businesses after years of loyal service—they’ll probably be seeking a rewarding kind of culture in a new job. If you want to attract and keep such employees, you should ensure your company creates this kind of culture.
In this new environment, do all you can to assist employees in crafting new careers. It will be a win for both sides.
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