Until things get better …

Just this past week I listened to the leader of an organization (we’ll call him Jason) proudly make the following announcement at a meeting: “To help us survive this downturn in the economy, we’ve put a hiring freeze in place, and we’ve eliminated raises for all employees. We’ve got to get through this downturn together until things get better.”

Let’s look at both aspects of his statement. His first comment was about a hiring freeze. Makes financial sense. No more salaries until things get better. But if he would consider hiring someone, that means the work is there to be done. So who gets to do it? The existing employees, which means they’re doing more work than before. Message to employees: Not only will I expect you to do your job well, I’m going to need you to do extra work because of the hiring freeze.

This leads me to his second comment about eliminating raises for all employees. Again, makes financial sense. No more raises until things get better. But aren’t these the employees who will be required to do more work since there’s a hiring freeze? Message to employees: Not only will we not raise your pay for a job well done on your current responsibilities, we will expect you to do more because of the hiring freeze and won’t be compensating you for the additional work either.

In good times, employee engagement is needed to help an organization thrive. In bad times, employee engagement is required to help an organization survive. If that is the case, how engaged do you think the people are who work for Jason? He is making short-term decisions that will have harmful long-term implications. Will they stay and do the work? Based on today’s job market, probably. But if he’s lucky enough to survive the global economic crisis with disengaged employees, how loyal do you think his employees will be when things get better?