If employees are overwhelmed, they're not engaged, said Lee. "Employee engagement—the desire to contribute to one's employer's success—requires energy and interest," he added. "Overwhelmed, beleaguered employees don't have the energy or the interest necessary for engagement. Their attention and limited energy are focused on trying to make it through another day. Employees in survival mode usually aren't thinking of new ways to provide value to their employers.

"Employee engagement is most important—and most challenging to achieve—in difficult times," Lee added. "Thus, if you want maximum employee engagement during these turbulent times, you need to know how to maximize your workforce's ability to handle (things) without becoming stressed or overwhelmed. In short, you want to help maximize your workforce's level of resilience."

A more resilient workforce can handle the pressures of work without becoming overstressed. And that impacts your ability to compete. "The intellectual, emotional and physical consequences of stress directly compromise the sources of competitive advantage in today's marketplace," Lee said. How?

Stress compromises the ability to create brand-building experiences. "Research on the brain supports what we know from personal experience: When stressed, people have difficulty experiencing empathy and compassion for others," Lee said. "People are less likely to respond with patience and goodwill. If your business's success depends on providing great customer service, you must address employee stress."

Stress compromises an organization's ability to respond quickly to change. "This is perhaps the most important organizational quality in today's world," Lee explained. "What stress does to the brain poses a serious problem. Decades of research show stress activates primitive hard-wired programs in the brain that lead to neophobia (fear of anything new) and behavioral inflexibility (repeating the same action, despite the fact that it isn't working)."

Stress compromises innovation and intellectual capital. "In today's knowledge economy, smart rules," said Lee. "Unfortunately, when people are stressed, they're not as creative, they're not as logical, they're not as capable of noticing alternatives and opportunities. Stress affects attention and mind share.

Stress compromises talent acquisition and retention. "Your ability to attract and retain talent obviously depends on your reputation as an employer. If your workplace is known as a high-stress, human-unfriendly workplace, don't expect to be a talent magnet."

Stress compromises productivity. "Stressed-out workers eventually burn out, costing you in terms of increased turnover, mistakes, workers' comp claims and health insurance premiums," Lee added.

What actions lead to high levels of employee engagement and motivation during challenging times?

Give employees as much control as possible over their work. "The more decision-making authority employees have in their work and the more they can determine how to execute the directives passed down from senior management, the more pressures and work demands they can handle without becoming stressed," explained Lee. "You do this by designing as much decision-making authority and flexibility into their jobs as possible—according to their skills, experience and maturity level."

Stotz added, "Use your reward and recognition programs to help employees focus on what they do have control over—their own performance—and how this connects to company-wide goals."

Help your employees build self-efficacy and feel the "thrill of victory." "People with a high degree of self-efficacy welcome challenge. They find it exciting, rather than something to be avoided," said Lee. "Building self-efficacy is like strength training: You grow stronger through challenge."

Keep the dream alive and celebrate your wins. "Research on trauma and resilience has shown that when people feel their lives have meaning and purpose, they have a far greater capacity to deal with traumatic events and difficult times," Lee said. "Inspired people—people ignited by a worthy cause—rise above challenges. Inspired employees persevere and overcome, they pull together and attack challenges with vigor and determination. Therefore, during difficult times, you must dial up your inspiration quotient. You do this by sharing stories from your employees and customers about how employees went the extra mile, provided great service (whether internal or external) and made a difference."

Maritz's Stotz agreed that it's important to take time for small celebrations and keep them sensitive to your environment—celebrations that don't appear to be too grand or over the top. "Even if you can't reward at the levels you previously rewarded, you can still recognize activity and this has great meaning to employees," Stotz said. "Remember that reward and recognition programs rank high on employee satisfaction and engagement scales. Don't take a hatchet to them."

Communicate, communicate, communicate. During difficult and uncertain times, amp up your communication, emphasized Lee. "Keep employees apprised of what is going on every step of the way," he said. "If employees have faith that you will let them know what's going on as soon as you know, they're far more comfortable with all the things that they—and you—don't know. Because so much during uncertain times is unknowable, it's important to get this right. Removing as much ambiguity as possible will make a huge difference in how comfortable with change your workers will be."

Lee advised companies to ask employees what information they want and the best ways to get it to them. "Try to make it face-to-face—even if it's semi-face-to-face through Web conferencing—as much as possible and allow for questions and answers (in a group setting as well as private)."

Strengthen relationships. "The stronger the relationship between labor and management, and among your employees, the more resilient your company will be," said Lee. Strong relationships are fostered by modeling teamwork, respect, caring and authenticity. Lee urged companies to fight the natural tendency many people have during difficult times to get lean and mean. "Don't become a grim, no-nonsense, all-that-matters-is-the-bottom-line machine," he said. "During difficult times, don't forget to take time for team building, relationship building and increasing esprit de corps. Invest in low-cost team and company-wide events that allow employees to relate as humans."

It's also important to support managers and to make sure they are involved in reward and recognition, said Stotz. "They have limited budgets and resources, and more requests being made of them," he said. "They may have geographically dispersed employees or fewer people. Give them resources to help' and reward and recognize them for their work. Help them to 'think' engagement and provide the engagement resources they need to do it."

Remove unnecessary sources of stress. "You don't want your employees spending their precious energy and coping resources struggling to overcome ineffective processes, ridiculous rules and policies, and other obstacles that make it hard for them to do their jobs well," said Lee. "Smart employers, even in good times, ask employees what frustrates them, make it hard for them to do their work well or just adds unnecessary aggravation. While you can't eliminate all sources of frustration and stress, your company can do plenty of things to reduce unnecessary stress."

While you may see competitors having life or death struggles and totally eliminating their incentive and recognition programs, Stotz said it's critical not to follow in their path. "I advise clients that if they do the same thing it projects a last hurrah of sorts for their own company—even if that's not the case," he said. "Don't swing the pendulum too far so that you send the wrong message to employees and customers."

Finally, remember to measure your results. "Times like these are tougher for companies that haven't measured the value of their investments in people," Stotz concluded. "If your company hasn't established metrics for tracking and measuring the impact of employee incentive and recognition programs, it's time to start."

© Copyright 2008 Premium Incentive Products. All rights reserved.