Talent Retention

When I ask my clients about their view about next year economy situation, I got different opinion about it.

Some said that their business slowed down and sales turnover reduced at least 15-20%. So, they foresee the situation will be worse in the coming 6 months. So, every single cents must be recorded clearly in the spreadsheet.

On the other hand, I had clients that told me Malaysia is not very badly hit compared to 1997 financial crisis. However, the confidence level had dropped. Most people "believe" it will be worse so they started to be more careful in spending their money. Fortunately, they still think that developing their people at this critical moments is that right thing to do, because once the economy begin to thrive, their people are ready to grasp the market. Grreeeat!!!

Through public media we read about many giant companies started to practice retrenchment, cost cutting exercise, recruitment freezing etc. I think the worst is starting to get "panic" by throwing hasty comments to non-performers, pushing them extremely hard for sales achievements, letting go of good staffs even though knowing that this is not the right move. Sad!!!

It has been long known that one of the most respectable company, General Electric decided to manage her talents during critical moments using the quadrant showed above. It is important to keep the right people at this moment rather than merely going for headcount reduction. As for me, I will definitely encourage companies to use the 4R methods in decision making.

By the way, which category you falls if you are an employee now? If you are under "remove" or "re-train", my advice is to talk to your employer on ways to improve yourself so that you can keep your job. Or if you are an employer, what is the distribution looks like in your company? Do you have all the "A" star employees?