Trying to help your business survive these tough economic times can be very frustrating and challenging, and many business owners are reluctant to ask for help or trust the judgement of others. However the staff you have employed are probably your most overlooked asset for beating the recession.
Your staff know your business well, most will genuinely care- if not about the company then at least about their own income, but are detached enough to be able to take a slightly different view from the owners or managers. So get them involved in the decision making process for implementing recession beating tactics, and they might come up with the idea that saves the business.
When businesses are looking to save money, one of the key areas they look at is processes with many finding they can cut time and money quite dramatically, so it would be a shrewd move to get your staff together for a review of the processes currently in place. As it’s them who carry out the processes on a day to day level, they will quickly be able to spot areas that could be streamlined, or even think of entirely new, more efficient processes.
Another way to involve your staff in the direction of the business is to do what the British government has recently done, and request their suggested cost saving methods. Give each department a cost saving target and allow them from their experience and knowledge decide where cuts would be viable and which expenses are must haves.
In many businesses the marketing budget/department is among the first to suffer cutbacks, and if this is the case in your business then we would highly recommend utilising the staff from elsewhere to help with the marketing effort. The staff know their business inside and out and so will have innovative ideas of how to promote it and a strong knowledge of the appropriate demographic to sell to.
The final area where staff can save money is not a particularly nice topic, but it is often necessary, and that is redundancy. Take stock of what your staffing needs over the coming months are and if there are excess staff, then seek professional advice on how to begin the redundancy process.
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