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Keeping your head down

Apr 08 2011 by Brian Amble
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It's a sad, but not particularly surprising fact that the way many organisations have reacted to the recession has made their employees less - rather than more – likely to be proactive or creative or to 'go the extra mile'.

In fact according to a new UK survey by HR specialists, The Curve Group, almost half (45 per cent) of employees are now less likely to put their head above the parapet at work for fear of losing their jobs. They are risk averse, have stopped being proactive or innovative and will only do what they need to do to survive.

The same survey also found that a quarter to UK organisations are not looking at ways to keep their top talent or engage their staff.

According to the Curve Group's Lyndsey Simpson: "This move to survival mode is a known shift coming out of a recession but it does have major repercussions for organisations including lower levels of performance, especially from survivors of a redundancy process and managers using a short-term, reactive management style."

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