HOW TO SAVE THE EMPLOYEES IN TOUGH TIMES

It is very hard to keep the good employees if organization is facing lean period , most of good employees may find other jobs and may leave rather than waiting and sitting on bench.So you have to engage them in some activities which are beneficial for organization as well as good for horizontal development of an employee.

Involve them to support marketing / sales to bring more business for company it will be beneficial if they are involved in early phase they can perform better if you have the same project.

Plan Knowledge sharing session, every employee have an extra ordinary interest in some topics and expertise also , you can invite everyone to present and share which they know better than others. This will be fun for them , topic can be anything related to business of not related. In the end knowledge is power

Most common thing : Plan training. You can get most of free time which you do not get on project cycle. Sharpen the axe before cutting tree. Train them to perform better in next project.

Workshops on Lessons learned for the past project and process improvement required to perform better in future. This should be done with PMO office.

It depends on the team members, you need to understand their motivations, for examples offering free training during the lack of projects generally works.