Talent Management - July 2008 - (Page 25)

a terrible time, and you’d never know it back at the home ofﬁce.” For that reason, he said it’s important to facilitate localized efforts to get a handle on how each area of the organization is doing. Open the Lines of Communication It’s human nature to avoid confrontation and talk about painful things in private, but perceived secrecy could have a harmful effect on employees. “During times of worldly or organizational change, there is a herd mentality among employees,” Chumble said. “Individuals sometimes stop thinking on their own, and any misconceptions, misinformation or speculations informally circulated around the company certainly do not help the situation.” Changes brought on by economic pressures or other external factors often are easier to address openly, as they are publicized by the media and generally affect the entire industry, Chumble said. Nevertheless, companies must open every channel of communication to disseminate timely and accurate information on an organizational and individual-employee basis. Talent managers also should identify employees who serve as opinion makers or unofﬁcial leaders of the pack and communicate with them ﬁrst, preferably one-onone, he said. They serve as mediums to convey the correct messages to everyone else. One-on-one meetings with employees also can help talent managers gauge the effects of rumors on workforce morale and emphasize the importance of openness and compassion. Change the Stress Response Stressed, angry, overwhelmed or insecure employees may be distracted and less productive. But there’s another, perhaps more serious reason for their decreased performance, Cryer said. “Fear inhibits cortical function. Your brain does not function as clearly,” he said. “Basic physiology has told us whenever a human being is feeling some form of negative emotion, the external reason for that doesn’t really matter. You don’t make great decisions or communicate all that well. Your heart is impacted in a negative way, which drains energy. A host of things play out when people are worried about the future.” Chumble said employees also are likely to feel helpless and victimized if they have no control over the situation. And if they perceive the organization itself has little control due to external factors, this also can cause confusion and panic. To make employees feel comfortable and prepare them for future changes, talent managers can teach them to manage their emotional responses. “Everybody treats [stress] differently,” Cryer said. “Our approach is to say, ‘OK, it’s less about the externals and more about the individual’s internal response and internal emotional state.’” HeartMath works with organizations to teach employees about physiological responses to fear and stress — how their hearts and brains are impacted — and offers techniques to alter behavior patterns. The company also instructs employees on how to recognize the symptoms of negative emotions, such as stress, fear, anger or insecurity, and to release the tension by focusing on enjoyable ideas. “You literally say, ‘I’m going to take a break from this mess right now and tune into how much I love my kid or how much I enjoyed that two hours in the hammock at the lake’ and remember that feeling,” Cryer said. “People have gotten used to a certain level of pressure and frustration and anxiety in the workplace. To shift the baseline back to a healthier state takes practice.” Teaching employees to manage their responses to stressful situations can have beneﬁts for the company’s bottom line, Gilley said. In BCBS of Tennessee’s pilot study on employee emotional states, the number of respondents who said they were anxious went from 31 percent to 8 percent after stress management training; those who said they were exhausted went from 46 percent to 5 percent; and those who said they were depressed fell from 14 percent to zero percent. As a result, BCBS of Tennessee saw reduced health care claims, increased productivity and improved employee engagement. “If you give them some way to deal with this, they’ll feel better, they’ll work better, they’ll go to the doctor less,” Gilley said. Create a ChangeManagement Task Force Many factors — such as the economy, inﬂux of young talent and a changing work culture — have resulted in a more volatile work environment than decades past. As a result, Chumble said change management has become one of the most important functions for senior management within an organization. “Senior management needs to form a special task force on a permanent basis to not only anticipate and manage changes, but also to make relevant changes happen within the organization,” Chumble said. Hexaware has created a management council committee to handle such developments, he said. Organizational change presents a challenge for talent managers who work hard to create an environment of trust and dependability for their employees. But by taking measures to prevent the emotional toll caused by change or uncertainty, talent managers can keep productivity, engagement and retention high, positively impacting the company’s bottom line. “It costs companies $300 billion a year nationally just to deal with stress,” Gilley said. “It is well worth it to manage your employees and to understand where they’re coming from and to help them deal with the changes most companies are having.” July 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com 25 http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - July 2008

Talent Management - July 2008 Editor’s Letter Human Performance Leading Edge Learning Connections Guest Editorial Passive Candidate Recruiting: Evolving with a Changing Workforce How Do They Feel? Sec Regulations and Executive Compensation Performance Management: A Retail Perspective Train the Non-Trainer Management-Go-Round: Developing Future Leaders Netflix Creates Its Own Script for Talent Management Intuit Spotlights Strategic Importance of Global Employee Recognition Make HR a Profit Center: Automate Technology to Gather Tax Credit Data Offshoring and the Impact on Talent Management Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - July 2008

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