I recently ran into a friend who had joined AIG just before the economy imploded. While he's grateful to have kept his job, working for a firm regarded as one of the four horsemen of the financial apocalypse has its downside.

"When I say I work at AIG," he says, "people react as though I'm in the porn industry."

It's hard to get excited about work when your company is reviled. And it's hard for companies to attract and retain top talent when their reputations are under siege. A new study from the Center for Work-Life Policy, discussed in the book Top Talent and the special report "Sustaining High Performance in Difficult Times," shows that this Great Recession has been accompanied by plummeting morale. Rates of engagement — measured as the percentage of employees willing to go the extra mile for the company — have fallen 12%-24% (depending on the sector) over the last eighteen months.

Just because the economy's in bad shape and unemployment is sky high, companies can't assume that employees — grateful just to have a job — are sitting tight and focusing on delivering 110%. Rather, the reverse is true. In troubled sectors, high-echelon workers who have survived the cuts feel neglected (the boss's attention is elsewhere), and overworked (teams are seriously depleted). But they're also rattled by ravaged reputations.

Our data shows that the number of employees who feel loyal to their company is down 42 percent. The number who trusts their company is down 41 percent. Indeed, in the financial sector more than half of top performers are seeking to jump ship, looking to cross over to more respected (and less risky) fields.

Moody's knows about reputational risks. In recent months, the firm (along with other rating agencies) has been criticized for a perceived failure to anticipate or ward off the current crisis. In late September, Moody's kicked off a philanthropic program which is set to both burnish its brand and enhance its ability to hold onto top talent through a tight alignment with its core value proposition. Developed in partnership with respected nonprofit Kiva.org, the new initiative brings Moody's expertise in assessing creditworthiness to Kiva's large network of microfinance partners around the world. These microfinance institutions do much to alleviate poverty by serving as conduits for loans of just a few hundred dollars to individual small business owners, and also by servicing those microloans.

What Moody's brings to the table is a new ratings methodology — specifically designed for the micro-finance sector and initially offered to Kiva partners pro bono — which will allow prospective lenders to gauge credit risk. Moody's also brings financial support and training to help Kiva's microfinance partners enhance their lending practices. This "quality control" focus will pave the way for tremendous expansion of the market by creating conditions necessary for the microfinance institutions to participate in global capital markets.

How has Moody's high-octane talent responded to this program? "With enormous enthusiasm," reports Frances G. Laserson, president of the Moody's Foundation. "Even before the partnership was announced, employees who had heard of it informally were asking how they could help.... They're hugely gratified that this firm is bringing value to the world, and they're ready to apply their experience and skills to make a difference."

The pharmaceuticals industry is another sector that's come under criticism. Pfizer, the global pharma giant, partnered with Grameen Health to launch a new business venture called Global Access which is focused on increasing access to healthcare for the working poor in the developing world. When the program was announced, project leader Ponni Subbiah was swamped with interest. "Employees wrote to me from all functional divisions within Pfizer — research, marketing, manufacturing, operations, even the auditing group — telling me how happy they were to see Pfizer spearheading this program — it made them feel good to be part of this company," said Subbiah.

One lesson from these initiatives is that amping up altruism is a particularly effective way of retaining talent when it taps into specific skills. "There are any number of philanthropic opportunities we could choose from," explains Laserson. "The Moody's-Kiva partnership allows us to apply the expertise of our employees which makes us that much more effective in helping lift people out of poverty."

A key question is: What will recovery do to these programs? As companies pick their heads out of the rubble and move into a phase of renewal and growth (and several prominent financial players are doing precisely that), will these programs lose their traction — for companies and individuals? I think not. Precisely because the Moody-Kiva and the Pfizer-Grameen partnerships are focused on developing promising new markets as well as improving the lot of humankind, they have staying power for companies.

Note: We originally ran this article last Halloween, but I thought it would be fun to run it again, so there you have it.

Let me start off by saying, this article is purely for fun. I don't really condone most of these ideas. It's Halloween and this is a day where people play pranks and whatnot. I'd like to just post the article, without this disclaimer, but I've seen too many of these things backfire when people don't "get it." So I'll tell you flat out. It's a joke. Most of these will probably get your house egged or TP'd.

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