Here are six ways you can create holiday cheer on a budget:

• Share the cost with employees. Cover the cost for your employees to attend, but ask them to purchase event tickets for anyone (spouses, dates, etc.) they wish to bring.

• Host a potluck. Rather than pay an expensive caterer, ask employees to prepare their best dish. You could even make it a competition in which employees vote on the best appetizer, main course and dessert. The winners could then be given a small prize. Make sure participants bring their recipes — people always ask for them.

• Divide it up. Rather than hosting a big party for the entire company, allow various departments to host their own low-budget events.

• Dress up and share treats. If a big dinner is out of the question, pick a workday and invite staff to dress up during business hours. The company can provide refreshments and ask employees to bring in their favorite holiday treats.

• Provide a helping hand. Choose a local charity and volunteer to have employees provide a meal for the less fortunate. Employees can gather afterward to share dessert and celebrate.

• Give employees the afternoon off. If a celebration just isn’t feasible, could you give employees an extra afternoon off around the holidays? Send out an e-mail that says, “In lieu of a holiday party, we invite you to spend an afternoon with your loved ones.”

Is your company doing something to celebrate or boost morale around the holidays? Let us know what it is in the Comments Box below.

Once the dust settles from layoffs, pay freezes and other cutbacks, employers are left with a group of staffers with a wide range of negative emotions.

Here are four proven ways to rebuild worker morale and productivity:

1. Game plan

Decide how the cutbacks will be communicated to those who will be left standing. Work out how you’ll reassign tasks ahead of time, and communicate why the changes were necessary.

Also, outline your company’s long-term recovery plan and how employees will contribute to that plan.

2. Let them talk

Two common reactions to cutbacks are anger and fear. Give employees a chance to vent their emotions and postpone your response until later — after workers have made all their feelings clear.

Positive body language, eye contact and nodding your head show that you care without having to say a word.

3. Keep their trust

It’s natural for people to feel defensive when cutbacks occur. These four actions will help you ease their minds and maintain employees’ trust:

• Show concern
• Be straightforward and honest
• Avoid getting defensive yourself, and
• Acknowledge and celebrate successes (whether big or small).

4. Set up training

As employees’ responsibilities shift, odds are many will need additional training — and developing training plans prior to any cuts will make the transition easier.

Tip: Assess which employees have a positive outlook about the changes. These workers will make the best leaders, whom people can go to for training and with questions during the transition.

The most common characteristics of high-ROI recognition programs — regardless of their monentary value — are their spontaneity and perceived value by employees themselves. 

In reality, the cost of some of most effective spot awards and bonuses often amount to less than 1% of base pay — and the awards don’t even have to be given in cash. 

Less sense of entitlement

Part of the problem with traditional end-of-year or quarterly bonuses (apart from the fact that they cost employers an average of 10% of base pay) is that employees expect to receive them for reaching certain goals.

Sometimes employees simply expect it no matter what. For example, at many firms, an annual holiday bonus is viewed as an entitlement and people inevitably grumble that it’s not high enough. On the flip side, with spontaneous awards and bonuses, workers are often pleasantly surprised.

Benefits consultant Ken Stahlmann spells out four keys to making the latter type of awards work, even if they’re lower in cost:

1. Creativity is crucial

The most effective programs typically give out awards weekly or monthly. To avoid over-stretching the budget – and avoid a ho-hum attitude setting in – creativity is a must.

One way that never gets old: combining time off with a second, non-cash award. Example: One firm gives a half-day off in combo with movie passes once a month.

Another, at weekly staff meetings, holds a random drawing for a dinner gift certificate, plus permission to leave work early once.

2. Make it personal

Rewards have more lasting impact when they’re geared to people’s personal needs or interests. Two examples:

• one firm with many foreign-born, low-wage employees awards a $20 pre-paid phone card after 90 days of service, and a $100 card for outstanding work, and
• another company with a lot of sports nuts took a few top-performers to a ball game. Managers said it was the best $200 they’ve ever spent in terms of creating ongoing enthusiasm.

3. Add structure

The awards may seem spur of the moment, but top programs have a fixed budget and structure set before anything is handed out. Example: One retail firm awards “points” for good work. Folks can then trade in their points for store merchandise.

By letting people bank points for more valuable rewards, the employer saw a solid jump in retention.

Other organizations prefer to let employees reward each other. For instance, a small healthcare provider keeps a “goodies box” onsite – paid for in petty cash and stocked by employees themselves.

When someone spots a co-worker going the extra mile, he or she pulls out a prize and awards it. The program is a huge hit: It’s immediate and personal, yet structured.

Even so, you hope to retain them, because they’re often reasonably productive employees. .

Deadline? What deadline?

Some employees seem to think you’ve nothing better to do than nag them to turn in benefits paperwork. They act annoyed when you send repeat reminders (forgetting you are actually doing them a favor). Others ignore you until it’s too late, then ask for an extension.

To stop such situations from becoming chronic, consider adding a benefits paperwork policy to your employee handbooks.

The policy should warn employees that deadlines are non-negotiable. You may also want to mention in the policy that most federal and state benefits laws – ranging from ERISA to FMLA – say you’ve done your duty by sending out just one announcement.

From there, compliance is up to the employee as long as the original notice contains two things:

• the date you needed all completed paperwork turned in by, and
• a clear indication of the consequences (e.g., late fees or coverage denial) if they miss the deadline.

Most employees fall in line if their employer consistently enforces this policy. The key is to not give in to the whiners and excuse-makers.

Generation ‘Why?’

The youngest employees in the workforce – the 18- to 25-year-old group known as Generation Y – have proven especially hard to deal with. Statistics show 54% of these employees leave within a year of hire.

Their attitudes toward benefits, salary, recognition programs and advancement in the organization can often be summed up this way: “I want it all now. Otherwise, I’ll put on my MySpace page how horrible it is to work here. Then I’ll quit.”

How are some firms retaining their more productive Gen-Y employees? Three ways that work:

• immediate rewards. Young workers live in the moment, so empowering supervisors to give out small rewards on the spot (e.g., a $10 gift card or a comped work day) often goes over better than a larger holiday bonus.
• equal flex-time. First make clear if, when and how flex-time is given. Then offer it on the same basis to the recent grad as the soccer mom, and
• education. Creating Gen Y-specific education messages often pays off in better participation.
  Example: When doing 401(k) or HSA education, hammer home the fact that participants own these accounts and control the money in them.

The ‘grass is greener’ group

A third group that makes life tough on Benefits/HR are employees who grumble how inadequate their benefits and pay are compared with other firms.

“Salaries are too low here,” they moan. “And the health coverage stinks. The copays and deductibles are too high.”

The most common way to prove such notions wrong is to issue yearly total compensation statements. But you may also want to hold a benefits focus group, inviting workers to present specific ideas for improving the benefits package.

If the grumblers have a legitimate suggestion to offer, you can adopt it. If not, they lose their credibility with — and influence over — other workers.

Would folks prefer a higher salary or comprehensive health benefits from the company? And what do employees really want from managers in the organization?

A recent survey shed light on both questions: In one, three quarters of employees would rather have good health coverage than a higher salary. Asked how much more cash it would take to give up medical benefits, the median response was an extra $11,000 in yearly salary.

In terms of company culture, 92% say honesty from management is a major expectation, along with fair opportunities for advancement (89%) and trust from supervisors (87%). Less crucial, but still valued company-culture traits: emotional supportiveness (25%), flexible schedules (20%) and family-friendly programs (15%).

Relatively unimportant: widespread friendship and socialization with colleagues (3%) and explanations from upper management of the company’s long-term goals (2%).

* Provide blank name labels and allow employees to make up their new “name of the day.” Now here’s a sure winner. Nothing says fun like an alias. “I’ll get right on that, Mr. Khan … er, may I call you Ghengis?”
* Ask each staff member to compliment another staff member of his or her choice, every day, in writing. No one may compliment the same person twice until having complimented everyone at least once. Yeah, this’ll work. Fast forward to Day 8: “You know, Bob, I think that dandruff thing is getting a lot better … ”

* Bring in marshmallows and allow people to roast them over the stove at lunch. We can see the headline: 18 burned in bizarre workplace bonding ritual.

* Be funny. A couple of knee-slappers for bosses: “Call a staff meeting to announce there’s no staff meeting.” “Hide under a table, and when people question you, tell them you’re trying to get a new perspective on things.”

Can’t-miss stuff. Let us know how they work out for you.

However, the same study found that only 21% of those employers believed their employees had a strong understanding of the workings of their own benefits.  And 5% believed that their employees didn’t know anything about their benefit options.

Implication: The greater emphasis placed on employee education, the more likely workers understand the role of benefits in total compensation.

His story:

When we hit a little rough patch in business and revenues declined, we found we had a pay dilemma, too. People had been used to getting bonuses based on productivity, but during a business slump, that proved costly for the company.

I mean, people might still produce a lot, but that didn’t necessarily mean we were selling a lot. So how could we cut bonuses without having a mutiny on our hands? The answer came in how we decided to figure bonuses, rather than cutting them.

No more productivity bonuses
The new plan: Instead of setting bonuses on straight productivity, we also tied them to company profits.

In effect, we moved from a bonus plan to an expanded profitsharing plan.

We explained the new plan to our employees in small groups and gave the reasoning for it: If the company makes more money, you’ll make more.

And we threw in a kicker: With the old bonus plan, there were limits on how big anyone’s bonus could be. We scrapped that and announced that there were no limits to the profit-sharing – if the company keeps making more money, you will, too.

People bought into it, since they realized that the new system was designed so that if the company was successful, we’d all share in that success. And when revenues started to inch up, our employees realized they were being rewarded in a better, more fair system. I doubt we’ll ever go back to the old way.

(Wesley Bacon, Latco Corp., Houston)

First, though, most recommend that you tell employees why it’s belt-tightening time. Most of them know anyway, but they still won’t like it when new, tougher measures get dropped on top of them without explanation.

 After explaining, here’s what the four employers did, as reported in the Los Angeles Times:

•  When Pro-Temp Inc., a cooling and refrigeration service company, hit its worst slowdown in eight years, the company’s owner started by replacing the formal holiday dinner with a pizza lunch. Then he cut employees hours, but saved people from drastic cuts by cross-training them to do work most of them had been unfamiliar with. For instance, some office personnel learned to do low-level maintenance on company vehicles. So when the action is slow in the back office, those people can switch over to maintenance – and avoid missing a day without pay.
• Hewlett-Packard has avoided layoffs in the past by using a ”nine-day fortnight” policy that requires workers to take off every other Friday without compensation. So, yes, there’s a pay cut, but employees also at least get the benefit of an extra day off every two weeks.
• The City of Birmingham began offering the option of a staggered four-day workweek for more most of its employees to save on fuel costs and buffer against layoffs.
• And on Aug. 4, Utah will become the first state to mandate a four-day week for most workers, with an expected 20 percent savings in energy costs once buildings are closed on Fridays.

When asked the question of why they’re not doing a good job, many managers have a stock reply: “It’s HR’s fault.”

You’ve probably seen it all before.

A supervisor in your organization avoids confronting employees who are slackers, or lets squabbles fester to the point that they threaten the morale and productivity of the group. Maybe you have supervisors who take the nonconfrontational-avoidance approach to the point of hardly ever leaving their offices.

They’re just bad managers, right? Could be. But when the Wall Street Journal surveyed some supervisors who used what could be called “blind-eye management,” a number of them said they behaved that way because they didn’t want to “cause headaches for HR.”

Let’s look at an example of what they mean.

‘Let’s forget it’

Suzie Supervisor walks into the office of the Harry the HR manager and says, “Fred Worker is lazy and has a bad attitude. I’m ready to come down on him hard.”

Harry lets out a sigh. Maybe he complains a little about all the other problems he’s dealing with. He asks Suzie if maybe part of the problem is in the way she deals with Fred. And if Fred is a minority, Harry lowers his voice and warns that firing Fred – or maybe even punishing him – could turn into an administrative and legal nightmare.

Result: Suzie says, “OK, let’s forget it.” She heads back to her office with the firm resolve to let slacker Fred do what he darn well pleases. In an extreme case, Suzie eventually begs out of her supervisor job, and Harry thinks, “She wasn’t a good fit anyway.”

Doing the right thing

All right, so maybe the example is a little dramatic. Most of us want to do the right thing and encourage others to do the right thing. We don’t intentionally push people into becoming bad managers.

But it’s worth listening to managers and taking an approach that makes them feel as if they’re partners with HR, not enemies:

– Give managers their legal and practical options. You may get someone who says, “I want to fire him now!” You know that’s not always do-able, for a lot of reasons, and you should explain why and what the alternative is.

But it’s worth listening to managers and taking an approach that makes them feel as if they’re partners with HR, not enemies:

– Give managers their legal and practical options. You may get someone who says, “I want to fire him now!” You know that’s not always do-able, for a lot of reasons, and you should explain why and what the alternative is.
– Give managers the positives and negatives – and there are always positives and negatives — of any taking action with a problem employee. That places you in a complementary role, without taking over the decision-making role.

– If the manager takes in your advice and makes a decision to action, offer your support and ask if there’s anything you can do to make the process go as smooth as possible.

Some managers are always going to blame somebody else for their inability to deal with problems and problem employees. That’s a given, and it’s partly human nature.

What you’re trying to accomplish is to make sure you’ve done what you need to do to help managers, without discouraging them or making it appear you’re taking over or encouraging them to shirk their responsibilities.