“Dear Abby” Has Interesting Company

A couple of weeks ago I shared a post in which "Dear Abby" commented that the flood gates are poised to open in businesses across America, resulting in the exodus of employees who are profoundly disappointed in how their organizations handled the cost cutting associated with the recession. Well, it appears that Abby is in good company and it comes from an unexpected group within the business world.

Robert Half and Associates recently conducted a Chief Financial Officer survey which examined the "lessons learned" from the recession. I assumed as I anticipated their likely answers that the majority of attention would be given to concerns such as, "Reduce costs sooner," or "Be willing to take on more organizational risk to alleviate financial risk." However, the response that was considered #1 was: "Place greater focus on maintaining employee morale."

Business, by its nature, is left-brained and pragmatic, and CFO's in turn are essentially the poster children of this perspective. It was therefore with both interest and surprise to see this group step back and recognize the implications of the financial decisions that were made. While the distress felt across organizations as waves of employees were laid off and comp and benefits were cut would be hard to ignore, it could also have easily been rationalized. After all, better to hurt a few rather than lose the entire the company. These CFO's therefore get bonus points from me for their willingness to acknowledge the unintended consequences of some of the decisions that were made.

And, the good news is that an investment in building a substantial, employee-centered culture pays off not just today, but also in the future. Research by Barbara Frederickson of the University of North Carolina has shown that a foundation of strength and positive emotions tends to create resiliency; people are far more forgiving during a crisis if they see it as an anomaly rather than as more evidence of cynicism and distrust. So there's no time like the present for CFO's and their fellow leadership team to make investments in employees, and therefore investments in the company's future.

Jennifer