What should a manager do to manage teams or workforce During Recession?

In order to retain employees we can motivate them by different ways and we can have different contests: - small small contest like if somebody achieves the target by this time (give them a time limit) he will get some gift. By this we can encourage our employees to work hard and to be competitive.

And other solution is we can shift them into other department if see the person is loosing interest or not getting enough motivated in any particular department. In that case if we found him suitable for other department so by giving him required training we can retain him.

Regards,

Tough times provides oppurtunities for innovation in terms of revenue generation,operational efficiency enhancement and risk management.

Therefore innovation is key to emerge as a leader with long term benefits in times of recession.

We had tried out this model earlier. Excess Employees form a group of 1/3 of total strength.

This excess group gets paid 1/3 salary and are rotated.This rotation can be monthly or quarterly 

During economic downturn, mostly lack of orders, will give us an opprotunity to work hard and honestly to improve our actions. Normally emplyees feel insecure and obviously non acting, because management does not allocate any specific job to them. Emplyees are being focussed by management and skill level of individuals get evaluated. Based on evaluation so called (during good time these were the assets) unwanted/nonperformer employees get eliminated.

Manager has to look after individual strength rather than weakness, detail study of his domain, honestly identify the opportunities for improvement in his work area, and allocate the job to all subordinates/collegues based on their strength and show importance of entire workforce to management. In other words, manager should utilize the manpower in eliminating the weaknesses. 

Plan for one or more of the following, which will enhance the capabilities of the resource and in turn the organization.

1. Refactor the code in the Re-usable code repository of the organization, so that it is tuned in line with the latest architectural / technology changes as adopted in the latest projects.

2. Enagage the resources in code reviews, may be form an Independent Review Board, the members of which can be called upon to do a code review or such other technical and functional reviews. Rotate the members on this board, so that the reviewers will practice the standards, when they go back to the projects.

3. Take up research tasks, so that the research outcomes can be applied of in the subsequent projects.

Instead of hiding the facts should be revealed so that instead of rumors spreading arround every one have the clarity of whats going and why ...

RECOGNIZING people at work by giving due consideration for their SKILLS and TALENT is among the High Rated Motivating Factors at work as per Literature and also in Pactice..

DELEGATION of Works results in TRANSFER of OWNERSHIP & ACCOUNTABILITY of the TASKS to the ASSIGNEE, thus enhancing his EFFECTIVENESS of producing RESULTS.

But point to be kept in MIND is that a GOOD LEADER by DELEGATING works doesn't escape from his RESPONSIBILITY on the OUTCOME of his TEAM MEMBER'S performance..

Keeping above points in view ..

RECOGNITION + DELEGATION =  MANAGEMENT SUCCESS...!!

Recession is time when work load is supposed to be less, skills can be transferred as ample amount of time is available with skilled workforce to transfer the skills. Also one shall grab this opportunity to get the best out of an employee as employee shall also be one step ahead to give his best in the tough times. (this holds especially valid when team is sales team)

An employee never wants to change job unless he is provoked. Yes, it is true. Provokation can be in terms of less pay, opportunity, conflicts etc. In the period of recession you may need to curtail things, you may need to be strict. But if all these comes as an order the employee gets upset and demotivated. Employee is one of the stake holders and you need to communicate that he is part of the family and how he can contribute for this diffcult period. They will readily sacrifice if the commuinication is proper.

When times are tough it is a mix of many things which can help in getting the flock together.

In rough weather the team has to identify the manager as a co-passenger of the same boat. Remember a captain of the ship is also a fellow traveler. The manager should be identified as a fellow team member. Once this is achieved, one needs to be transparent and gain confidence.

Work wise, other bits hold true even when the going is smooth. Give challenging assignments, rotate the team. Give them enough opportunities to excel. All these points will give them faith of getting more recognition when the times change.