Morale Boost

INNOVATION MASTERCLASS:Ensuring the wellbeing of the employees who remain after layoffs is crucial to a business's success People can make or break an organisation - at the moment, Ireland is suffering from low national morale

THE HUMAN cost of the current economic upheaval is high, both for those losing their jobs and those who remain. With Irish business going through its biggest structural upheaval ever, having a committed workforce may well be the difference between survival and failure. Keeping employees motivated amid the gloom is easier said than done, but now is not the time to forget that they are still a company's biggest asset.

"People can make or break an organisation," says Paddy Collins, director of Torc Consulting, which specialises in organisational issues. "At the moment, Ireland is suffering from low national morale, which is leading to intense feelings of insecurity among employees. Employees are prepared to put up with tough times if they feel they are working towards something positive. This is why it is absolutely crucial for employers to take time to engage with their work forces to help them believe they have a future."

Already overburdened owners of SMEs may well feel they simply cannot think about staff on top of everything else. But, for those who take the trouble to do so, there is payback. Employees who feel included (even if the news is bad) are better motivated, more productive, less prone to stress-related illnesses and less likely to be absent from work.

Collins says that one of the most important issues employers need to be actively managing right now is the fall-out from redundancies. "Employers make the hard decision to cut staff and assume that's it," he says. "It's only one side of the coin. The other is looking after the survivors whose working lives have been turned upside down by the layoffs. Employers need to make it clear to them that once the redundancies have taken place it is time to move on and rebuild the business. Only then can you start looking at other initiatives to improve employee morale and wellbeing."

So-called employee "wellness programmes" have been a feature of business in the US for many years. They are growing in popularity here, with the uptake for employee assistance and stress management programmes burgeoning in recent times. There is a cost to their introduction but it is normally outweighed by gains in productivity, efficiency and goodwill. Employees respond well to employers making the effort to improve their working lives and initiatives to achieve this can range from offering home/flexible working to providing health screening to simply providing staff with a decent coffee machine.

Maura Kilcoyne set up EAP consultants 10 years ago and is one of the largest indigenous providers of employee assistance programmes. She says business is brisk as companies struggle to keep the HR side of operations on an even keel in the aftermath of cutbacks.

"People are deeply concerned about the future, yet they may not feel able to bring it up with their employer," she says. "On the other side, employers feel they don't have the skills to deal with the types of HR issues thrown up by the economic crisis. This affects performance across the board and is where an employee assistance programme (EAP) can help."

EAPs provide support for employees and training for management to enable them to deal with their own and employees' concerns.

Kilcoyne's company runs programmes for companies of all sizes, and programmes are costed on a volume basis. For example, the yearly fee for an organisation with around 500 staff is €7,000.

Petrol retailer Topaz was voted one of the best Irish companies to work for in 2008 by over 1,000 of its 1,500 employees. It puts a heavy emphasis on valuing staff feedback and rewarding people for exceptional effort. On the "soft" side of employee wellbeing, its head office staff benefit from initiatives such as health screening, a ready supply of fresh fruit and an annual visit from the Easter bunny.

"We see these initiatives as part of our culture and have no plans to scale back because of the current climate," says Kendra Ryan, human resources development manager. "These are things you do in the interests of the long-term development of the business. We believe that the little big things are important and we work hard at keeping our employees engaged and enabling them to deliver results."

Absenteeism is estimated to cost Irish business around €1.5 billion per year while stress-related problems cost another €3.8 billion. "Absenteeism and stress are two of the most costly problems that employee wellness initiatives can make a difference to," says Deirdre Cronnelly, who set up motivational and wellbeing consultancy, Afresh, four years ago.

"There is not a lot of research looking at the impact of wellbeing programmes on the bottom line in Ireland, but research by the department of health in the UK showed that for every £1 spent on such programmes, the return was nearly £4, including a 34 per cent saving on absenteeism costs."