How to soar during difficult times

How to soar during difficult times

Part 1 of 5

Over the past few years, the economy has hit many industries. Businesses closed their doors or downsized, employees lost their jobs, and many families lost their homes and belongings. Fear started to sneak in. Not only people who lost everything, or who were at the edge of losing everything, but also the ones who still had their job security, struggled with this fear.

"Fear leads people to focus on the issues instead of the desired outcome. This creates the environment of 'playing not to lose' instead of 'playing to win'. Employees in this situation tend to disengage which drives a company into "paralysis"", says Success Coach Helena Nyman.

Once an organization takes its course, it is a difficult and long undertaken to turn it around.

On the other hand, you have organizations that soar during this difficult economy. If you go back to the 1930s, you see that history repeats itself again. During the 1930s, there were companies that not only survived the crisis, but separated themselves from the sinking ship and became some of the nation's leading companies.

Let's take a closer look at what happens when fear sets in and employees start to disengage.

Engaged employees are clearly more valuable to your company than disenchanted ones. Great managers and leaders know this instinctively, and The Gallup Organization's latest research into employee engagement levels among the U.S. workforce confirms it. In fact, according to Gallup's calculations, actively disengaged employees -- the least productive -- cost the American economy up to $350 billion per year in lost productivity.

~ The Gallup Organization

One of Gallup's researches (based on about 3 Million people's responses) suggested as well that only 29% of the U.S. workforce is actively engaged, 55% is not engaged, and 16% is actively disengaged. To put it another way, for every two employees walking the halls of your organization, there is a cave dweller impeding the good work done by the engaged employees.

If 55% of all U.S. workers are not engaged, and 16% are actively disengaged, then 71% of the Americans who go to work every day aren't engaged in their role. That means that American businesses are operating at less than one third of their capacities. What if only one third of a manufacturing company's machines operated at capacity every day? What a loss of opportunities!

The good news are that there is still an opportunity for growth - even during this tough economy - if you can move your employees from the "not engaged" to the "engaged" category.

To learn more about how to turn your company around, create opportunities and lead your employees to high performance, stay tuned for Part 2 of 'How to soar during difficult times'.

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