How to become recession proof

(Note: This article originally appeared in the January-February 2009 issue of the UP FORUM)

Nowadays, a growing number of Filipinos, from bank executives to call center agents, are slowly being dragged into the maelstrom of joblessness as employers attempt to cope with the economic crunch. As companies slash hundreds of thousands of jobs every day, there is constant worry that you or someone you know will one day be handed the dreaded pink slip.

But for UP alumnus (MS Industrial Engineering) and HR Central KK managing director Jun Kabigting, even a recession can offer tremendous opportunities for those who are bold enough to go outside of their comfort zones. HR Central KK, a Japan-based search and recruiting consultancy, specializes in a wide array of HR services and caters mostly to foreign-affiliated companies across various industries. Kabigting, a placement coach, believes that a downturn in the economy may be a good opportunity to engage in self-assessment. When an employee is laid off, for instance, it may be a signal that it is time to talk to a career counselor or a professional who may be able not only to give advice on available work options but help also assess one’s strengths, character, or disposition with respect to a particular job.

Reinvented mentoring
Kabigting says employees should not hesitate to see a coach or someone who can facilitate the “process of self-discovery.” In Human Resource Management parlance, a coach, whether person or organization, gives direction, instruction, and training to an individual or group of people with the aim of achieving particular goals or developing specific skills. In many large organizations, the HR professional typically assumes the role of the coach and does everything from active listening to conducting tests that gauge an employee’s strengths and weaknesses.

Coaching may sound new, but it is actually an old practice that has been prevalent since the craft guilds of yore. The term mentoring is derived from Mentor, a counselor and friend to Odysseus to whom the Greek hero entrusted the education of his son Telemachus. It is said that this learning model was applied to commerce, craft, and art from ancient times until the advent of capitalism in Europe.

In the early ’90s, mentoring has been reinvented as coaching, which currently plays an important role in human resource development and life help. Some experts draw a distinction between mentoring and coaching. A mentor and a coach perform similar functions, but while a mentor is usually someone who works within the same facility, a coach is often from outside the organization. Coaching, as an area of study different from mentoring, is rapidly gaining ground.

Self-help experts
There are various ways to coach, types of coaching, and methods to coaching. One may coach through motivational speaking, through seminars and workshops, or through supervised practice. Although the role of coach has changed over time, it is still about the process of helping an individual, team, or organization to go from where they are at present to where they want to be. This process is reflected in another definition of coach—a carriage, which, of course, takes people from one place to another.

Though they might be similar, coaching and training are not the same thing. A coach acts as a facilitator rather than an instructor. The purpose of coaching is not to impart new learning but to make employees realize their talent or potential, which may benefit them in their roles in the organization, or which may come in handy in the event of displacement, say, when the organization is streamlined. Instead of giving  the answers directly, a coach helps the client discover the answers for himself or herself. “And when is the best time to do this than in a crisis situation?” Kabigting says.

Some companies, in fact, even call upon special coaches to help them lay off people. Referred to as outplacement experts, these coaches offer career guidance and counseling to the newly unemployed to ease the transition to their next job. This is at times necessary, he says, because sometimes people are unaware of their own capabilities. Outside objective intervention then comes in handy for them to recognize their true strengths and weaknesses.

In large corporate environments, the HR coach’s duty is normally to ask an organizational leader, say a manager or an executive, to reflect on how a critical situation was handled. The questions are introspective and the coach typically hints at actions that may have been more effective than the course the manager chose. Hostility sometimes arises because people have different reactions to feedback, and even the most carefully chosen words can create an unexpected negative reaction.

Coaching, of course, cannot replace training. It is textbook knowledge among HR professionals that companies which value and invest in training have higher chances of weathering any crisis. Training does not have to take place in an expensive classroom setup. Buying books, arranging virtual or online seminars, encouraging employees to work on projects outside their normal sphere, and mentoring new or underperforming employees are actually various forms of training.

Organizational advantage
Kabigting says that because coaching tends to overlap with other HR functions, not to mention the costs it entails, not all organizations invest in an external coaching program.  However, there are companies which maintain an internal “mentoring” program through which senior employees are paired with newcomers. People can also find coaches in their priests, ministers, old bosses, former colleagues, teachers, or even friends. Nothing beats professional coaching, though, of course, this comes with a price tag. “But one can always look at it as some sort of investment for the organization or the individual,” he says.

In Japan, a number of non-profit organizations have been giving free advice and counseling to recently displaced employees. The Japanese government itself has set up “Hello Work” offices to assist job hunters in scouting for possible employers.  The larger and more well-known companies, on the other hand, generally avail of the services of big outplacement firms such as Right Management and DBM.

Coaching and training, however, need not be given to everyone in the organization. The Development Center for Asia Africa Pacific (DCAAP), a Manila-based nonprofit global training and development consulting firm, for instance, caters specifically to executives and middle managers engaged in project management.

It is practical to focus on managers rather than ordinary people, says DCAAP founding president and CEO Dr. Cesar Mercado. Since it was founded in 1995, the DCAAP has trained over 1,500 managers and staff from almost 250 organizations—mostly engaged in development management—in 44 countries in Asia, Africa, Pacific, and Europe. “We found out that eight out of 10 obstacles hindering the success of development programs in third world countries are caused not by ordinary people—their supposed target beneficiaries—but by the managers in the very agencies running the projects,” says Mercado. He says roughly 80 to 90 percent of the money allocated to development projects is actually consumed by their implementing agencies.

In other words, when people talk about the money that trickles down to the community, they are referring to only about a tenth of the allocation for the project. A significantly larger chunk goes to operating expenses, such as the salaries of managers, executives, consultants, and advisers.

It is also worth mentioning that the very government agencies implementing the projects are plagued by corruption. According to Mercado, if one is to follow a trail of questionable transactions, it could very well lead to the legislators who created the law appropriating the funds. The World Bank recently banned three construction firms from participating in any of the agency’s projects allegedly due to collusion and contract-rigging. Subsequent news reports suggest that the fiasco may involve not just three beleaguered contractors but also some highly influential people in the government.

Organizations big and small
On a wider scale, organizations can also learn from the best practices of other organizations the way employees can learn from an HR coach. As a former international professional staff of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Mercado has learned that a crisis can hit an organization, big or small, profitable or not. “This is the reason why we try to keep ourselves small and are anxious about plans to expand,” he explains.

DCAAP provides other services that include inter-country research, publications, consultancies, and study tours. With a staff of five people tasked to run all these programs, the Center is small even by the standards of non-profit organizations (NPO). The size of the organization, however, is also its advantage. “If an office is big and gets hit by a recession, it will most likely be forced to cut down on jobs and lay off people,” he explains. If an organization is small, however, the risk of downsizing is smaller. All it has to do, according to Mercado, is “refocus” its efforts—that is, set its sights on other markets or potential clients.

DCAAP has refocused its programs to accommodate not just participants from other developing countries but those from local government agencies as well. There is a very viable market for development management in the government, says Mercado, because even in developing countries the state always keeps a regular allocation for social alleviation in the annual budget; in times of recession, the government extends loans in the form of financial packages. Mercado is confident that government projects and internationally-funded programs will never suffer a decline, “at least not any time soon.”

Back to basics
“I think more important than physical expansion is expanding one’s knowledge,” says Mercado. “As far as I am concerned, as long as we have enough to pay for the salary of the staff and a substantial portion as reserve, there is no reason to expand.” The biggest companies, he says, tend to be the biggest losers in these tough times.

Mercado notes that since funding agencies themselves must decide which development programs to prioritize as their own governments struggle with the crunch, projects have become shorter and funding has become a concern even among development-oriented organizations. The adage about the biggest falling the hardest apparently holds true even among non-profit organizations.

“I used to be with a development agency in the Philippines—a big one,” Mercado says, “and I have seen how it collapsed, its experts setting up their own outfits or getting pirated by competitors over the years as the worsening economy took its toll on its operation.”

Employees who feel they are in danger of getting the pink slip may also want to consider self-employment and entrepreneurship as viable options.

Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to have a little faith and a sunny disposition. Even professional HR coaches get laid off, says Kabigting, and when it happens they just look for new clients. “It is always good to maintain your composure and a positive attitude. This too shall pass,” he says. And if an employee wants to find ways to make his job recession-proof, nothing beats the basics. “Pay your dues, work hard, be smart, study hard, and always learn from your experience.”