We recently had a meeting with a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to discuss the findings of the company’s employee engagement survey. The CEO was furious, but he wasn’t angry at the results. They were excellent and demonstrated that the investments we made to build a solid employment brand had worked. He was upset about one particular comment made by a single employee and demanded to know who the employee was.
The answer to this request was “no”. He was a little taken aback, but he continued with his argument. “We can’t have someone who feels that way working here, they’ll poison their co-workers. We must get rid of them.”
We explained this employee would make themselves known through their performance or other behaviors. We didn’t want to sacrifice the trust we’ve built to simply flesh out one disgruntled employee. The purpose of an anonymous survey is to collect honest feedback.
Owners and managers have a lot of pressure on them. They must make difficult decisions, often quickly and without all the data they would prefer to have. When those decisions will impact the workforce, consulting a Human Resources (HR) leader who understands the big picture can help the owner frame these business challenges. The HR expert can also present potential solutions in ways that achieve the business objectives with the least amount of negative impact on employee engagement and performance.
For example:
Company A needed to reduce its workforce due to the loss of a key client. The CEO considered across-the-board pay cuts and temporarily eliminating the 401k match as a way to protect cash flow and spread the pain evenly. His HR leader pointed out that the big winners with that strategy are the poorest performing employees and the biggest losers are his “A” players. On the HR leader’s advice, they opted instead to keep the benefits structure in place and lay off 20% of the workforce. This strategy was carefully chosen to have the least impact on productivity.
The CEO of Company B wanted to fire an employee immediately as a result of a mistake. The HR leader saw the potential impacts of that snap decision, including establishing the precedent that a mistake results in immediate termination. The HR leader was also concerned about the impact the termination might have on the rest of the team and costs associated with losing the unemployment hearing. The HR leader asked, “would you fire our top sales rep if they did the same thing?” The CEO admitted it would be difficult. The HR leader suggested the CEO allow him to document the mistake and develop a performance improvement plan for the employee instead.
Unfortunately, many small business owners find themselves on an island making decisions like these without the counsel that the large company CEO enjoys. But the smart ones surround themselves with trusted outside advisors, including a part-time HR leader. Contact the Davidson Group for expert HR advice.
