Six Enemies of Post-Recession Performance

The Corporate Executive Board put together a teleconference called Executive Guidance for 2010, with the goal of helping companies with post-recession recovery.

Their research offers Six Key Enemies of Post-Recession Performance:

1. Changed Customer Needs - A shift in consumer buying behavior (e.g. increased emphasis on value, perceptions about pricing, etc.) should force organizations to actively revisit their customers' needs and adapt selling models to challenge their beliefs and educate them about their own business.
2. Top Talent Disengagement or Flight - The average organization faces an imminent 7 percent productivity loss from the combination of departing top talent and undermanaged recruiting pipelines. Companies must carefully manage employee engagement and keep recruiting pipelines full to ensure that as economic conditions improve, key initiatives and projects are not crippled if even a small segment of high performers leave. With the prediction that as many as 30% of staff are looking to leave their companies when the economy improves, this becomes a critical factor in treating staff the right way - now.
3. Increased Risk Velocity - While there is a need for faster, more agile risk management strategies, companies that build risk response capabilities stand to gain 20 percent higher revenue growth than those that focus only on risk assessment.
4. Higher Levels of Employee Misconduct - Organizations already lose an estimated 7 percent of annual revenues to employee fraud, and CEB research shows that employee misconduct has increased at a rate of 20 percent. Organizations that take an active role in exhibiting corporate values can improve employee performance.
5. IT Budgets Targeting a Shrinking Share of Enterprise Information - Today, 40 percent of the most valuable information created by employees is out of reach of corporate IT systems. Companies need to create policies to create productive exchanges and educate employees on the use of new mediums, particularly social media.
6. Misplaced and Untrained Leaders - Companies seeking better leaders need look no further than their own organizations. CEB has found that correct reassignment and proper support of existing leaders can improve revenue and profit by more than 10 percent.