Strategic HR Initiatives to Combat Economic Recession

Most of the countries all over the world are going through this phase of economic recession. Many old and big companies have already been brought down on their knees to bite the dust. The recession provides a great opportunity for HR professionals to use the economic challenges to emphasize fundamentals of human capital management. The global recession has many companies quickly adjusting their HR policies to combat its effect on human resource policies. The HR has to take strategic initiatives to increase the productivity and efficiency of the entire organisation. The HRM Function is asked to bring new ideas, to change the HRM Processes and to develop or change the procedures. The HRM should be the forefront in this activity being independent from operations. HRM Function has to change its short-term priorities to make the organization competitive again. The role of the HR Management is not to minimize the costs for the time being, but to make the organization stronger and ready for the future growth and focus their attention on our human strengths, and on the value of our relationships with each other. The HR Management has to have priorities at conceptual level and the strategic impact of the HRM Innovations in the recession time. The HR has to look on the existing manpower plan, strategies the recruitment process, optimize the manpower strength, rework on the compensation policies, re-look at the training and development programmes, identify the key human components that to be protected from competitors, free flow of commutations across the departments, maintain the organizational peace and invite the employees for a collective change process. HR executives will have to ensure that the organization is doing the right thing and doing it right, while increasing emphasis on the ROI, on productivity and efficiency. In turbulent times more than any other department, there is not only the opportunity, but the need for HR to provide leadership to the business. This paper explores the strategic initiatives taken by the HR professionals of various companies that to combat the impact of global economic recession on organisation at large and people with specific initiatives.