Photo Credit: Dreamstime.cm

What can you do if you work in HR for a company that is in desperate trouble like Yahoo?

By most measures Yahoo is floundering: low morale, shrinking market, tough competition and now the head of HR has agreed to leave the company (not necessarily a bad idea).

I don’t know about all of you but working in HR at Yahoo or a company in a similar situation sounds pretty overwhelming. Right off the bat I can think of one or two things Yahoo should do to improve morale and stem turnover. But then I start to think about all the details that need to take place, then I start to think of everything that can go wrong on top of everything else that is already wrong. Is your head spinning? Mine is.

So what’s an HR person to do? Give in to the overwhelming sense of despair and start looking for a new job? Or do the best you can and soldier through each day?

I’m a practical gal, so I would advise you to do both. Your company may or may not pull out of this funk but I strongly suggest you work on your resume, keep your network current and do your best to help your company pull through this bad period.

This crisis is a great opportunity for Yahoo’s HR team. This is the time to start putting those crazy ideas on the table! I mean what’s the worst that can happen? You may get fired but you are probably more likely to get laid off before that happens.

Okay, Okay, you don’t want to go all idea crazy because you still need to make the payments on your home but you still have an opportunity here. Start by “getting it.” The company is in a tight spot and may not recover. Your job is to remove the roadblocks, ease bottlenecks, and escalate good ideas and good people (not just the bad stuff). What does that look like? Well start by asking what is unnecessary…truly unnecessary.

Tap your front line HR folks: administrative assistants, generalists, and recruiters. What holds up their BL partners? Are there old rules in place (“from a more civilized age”) that can be removed? Get rid of them. Now is not the time to worry about high level strategy.

What’s the end look like? Two scenarios here:

a.) The company goes out of business, you worked your ass off and have some good references = shorter job search time

b.) The company stays afloat and your business partners are all like “HR rocks!” = credibility and maybe a seat at the cool kids lunch table?

So what do you have to lose again? Exactly.