BUILDING HUMAN RESOURCES LOYALTY DURING AN ECONOMIC CRISIS

Abstract

The objective of this article is to explore the way in
which employee loyalty is addressed by companies
during an economic crisis. A study has been conducted at the middle of the last economic downturn
from February to march 2010 in several kinds of
structures (eight big companies from the private sector and a significant non-lucrative organization)
within different businesses.
results show that building human resources loyalty
is an issue high on companies’ agendas, even during
an economic crisis. While one would expect that
companies focus their effort on staff redundancies
by fostering turnover, they rather care about keeping
their key competencies and struggle to avoid turnover which could hinder their performance and their
social climate. The organizations on which the economic crisis had the heaviest impact are particularly
concerned with staff remobilization. Employee
loyalty building looks then important to manage
human resources and requires continuity despite the
variations of the economic context.