How 100’s Of Workers Avoided A Layoff and Didn’t Lose Their Jobs

Ok, I know we’re a home business or work at home blog. Lots of people turn to this field because of a layoff or ‘downsizing’. In other words it’s chosen out of necessity and at the worst of times and - for that reason - more likely to fail or cause someone to fall victim to a work at home scam.

So here’s some good news about how hundreds of workers avoided a layoff and didn’t lose the jobs to downsizing.

Please note though that this type of turn around can only happen when MANAGEMENT actually manages people instead of just crunching numbers.

You can read this for yourself at the Gallup Organization

An International Paper mill near Texarkana, Texas faced serious problems due to razor thin profit margins. While many companies choose to address margins by continually cutting the work force, International Paper chose to actually manage the workforce and bring them “onto the team” so that the workers would take “ownership” of the problems facing the plant not just feel themselves to be pawns to be sacrificed on the chess board of industry.

When margins become razor thin, as they have in many industries, often the profit variable that companies can best influence is employees’ enthusiasm and commitment. Engaged employees can save businesses a lot of money because they are more productive, more profitable, safer, and less likely to quit. Actively disengaged employees, however, cost a fortune to employ — Gallup estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. economy $300 billion a year in lost productivity alone.

When businesses get serious about employee engagement, often they’ll focus on trouble areas with laser-like intensity. If the Q¹² results show that too few people feel they have the “materials and equipment” they need to “do their work right” or that their “opinions seem to count,” the business will buckle down and fix those problems individually, energetically, and thoroughly. And it works. Employees know that the company takes engagement seriously, and they understand that they are each responsible for communicating their needs and improving their job experience. This is what the Texarkana mill did for a while — that is, until they got a better idea: integration.

In many organizations, the issues that prevent engagement are associated with systemic problems — for example, company-wide lack of communication or a serious disconnect between workers and managers regarding expectations. It’s rare, in fact, for problems that undermine engagement to exist openly and discretely — they’re often combined with other problems and embedded deep in the culture of a company, department, or workgroup. Bringing them into the open and tackling them at a workgroup level can make a huge difference in the engagement and performance of employees in the workgroup, but it takes time for solutions to trickle up and then out. What Texarkana found was that it could institute programs to solve big systemic issues — and simultaneously solve singular, isolated engagement problems.

The 12 Elements of Great Managing

1. I know what is expected of me at work.
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
6. There is someone at work who encourages my development.
7. At work, my opinions seem to count.
8. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
9. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work.
11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

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