There is a dagger effect that the company must work hard to overcome. Stum was in Kansas City last week for an employee benefits seminar. The telephone survey of 1,800 employed adults examined attitudes toward workplace productivity, pride in their organizations and job retention.
People are afraid about their own job security.
That investment should include management training to teach top and midlevel managers how to communicate with employees, he said. Employees in downsizing organizations do not need pep talks, Stum said. They need the truth about their value to the company and their role in helping it become healthy. That's the only way to buy their retention. The deal in the workplace today is that you just want to keep your best people longer than your competition keeps theirs.