Sign of times to come

Excellent,' I cried. 'Elementary,' said he.
—Sherlock Holmes and Watson in Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

This is a special thank you note to all the people who took the time off to respond to my questionnaire that tried to assess the HR landscape.

The findings are excellent or elementary, depending on which side of the dark period of the worldwide recession you look from.

Everyone agrees that in these tough times that have yet to completely go away, the most important task has been to retain employees, to keep their morale up. It has been the singularly most important HR task and nobody has put any other job before it. So how was this done? Offering company-sponsored activities has been the most dominant. But some companies tried to go a step forward and offer role changes wherever possible to bring some excitement to the otherwise sombre mood. Some forward-looking ones continued to invest, as always, in external training and talent development.
Employees, on their part, responded with full enthusiasm. It has been well-understood that everyone, on both sides of the HR table, will have to work together to be able to generate enough momentum to exit this depressed market. In a way, this has led to learning lessons we would otherwise not have time to imbibe. Or let's say in good times, lessons of oneness, of 'United we Stand' etc are inspirational thought. But in the down period they are the straws we have to clutch to because we know we will otherwise go down.
Some HR managers have reported that employees went a step ahead and invested in self development on their own too.
This kind of skill development, mostly the development of the softer issues like team spirit, leadership, attitude and communication has definitely made for a better-equipped work force. So tomorrow is already looking bright for more than one reason.
When the markets open up, everyone is obviously waiting to bulk up the sagging top and bottom lines. HR says that it will pursue new business first before adding people.
This time of duress is proving to be one of lessons truly well-learnt. Difficult times always help build character, as the wise say. Now the time has come to open the doors, let the sunshine stream in and brace ourselves for the future that we readied ourselves in the past couple of years.