By Gillian Seely

A government official is delivering a press conference on a matter of grave importance.  No one dares to make a sound.  Quietly, one man turns his head and nudges the person beside him. “Do you smell smoke?” he whispers. Three other people hear him and turn around to confirm their suspicions. A nervous ripple moves through the audience, and one bold woman musters up the courage to yell, “FIRE!!!” Chaos ensues as people dash for the exits en masse. No one wants to be left in a burning room.  Commonsense though it may seem, many CEOs abandoned this truth to the wind when the going got tough in recent years.

Word-of-mouth and hype are powerful tools. Your treatment of employees during difficult economic times could have hurt your brand more than you know. Before you know it, you may find yourself facing an exodus of talented employees, with little or no fresh talent wanting to come in the door.

Is your company a burning building, or have you been treating your employees well? Your behavior during a recession may have seemed appropriate. It’s undeniable that companies have been under severe budget cuts and you’d be hard-pressed to find a company that has survived without some degree of layoffs. However, the extent to which you flexed your corporate muscle and intimidated or even emotionally abused your employees with threats (overt or subtle) of layoffs will determine how you come out on the other end.  It will also determine to what extent fresh talent wants to work for a company that regularly laid-off hard working employees and was unwilling to sacrifice for the good of the team. 

Employers, take note! You probably think your employees are more satisfied than they really are. A 2009 Salary.com survey on the topic of retention showed that 65 percent of employees admitted to passively or actively looking for a new job, compared with employers’ estimates of 37 percent. 77% of employers believe their employees were at least somewhat satisfied in their jobs, while in reality, only 65 percent said they were satisfied.  The key takeaway from the survey is that employers have felt confident that simply giving someone a job is enough to retain them during a recession, but that has never been entirely true, and now the tides are turning!

So as 2010 progresses, and the nebulous “when the recession ends” nears, focus your efforts on retention. It’s important now, more than ever, to treat your employees well and reward them before it’s too late for the valuable contributions they’ve made to your team during hard times. Click here for some tactics on retaining your company’s most valuable asset.

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