Business Matters - July 2008
Recession or Bust
The “R” word is on everyone's lips at the moment. All business owners face times when cost cutting measures have to take place and if the financial pundits are to be believed, the current economic climate is forcing every business to make each penny count. Whether you are coping with a cash-flow crisis or just looking for ways to cut costs to improve your company's profitability here are some HCS tips which may help you evaluate that most expensive of all commodities – your Human Capital costs:
HCS Tips:
- Consider offering job share to staff – this may attract workers seeking to reduce hours due to personal reasons such as carer duties, childcare or study. This may allow you some breathing space in the short term to evaluate the overall salary bill against reduced profitability.
- Stop overtime during slow periods. Just make sure you let your staff know the reasons behind this.
- Cut back on temporary staff where appropriate.
- If you are having to contemplate redundancies, then evaluate each of your current roles and establish those which are crucial to the business. Remember your employees are your business so it is important to realise the likely impact should you lose a particular role – in particular one that may be difficult to attract and retain in the future.
- Consider the skills and interests of your staff members and develop some “job shadowing” opportunities as time and workloads permit. This will reduce the need to employ temporary staff to cover absence
- Have your sales team evaluated their route plans? Are all journeys carried out in the most productive and cost effective way? Are journeys carried out unnecessarily? Do all customer calls need to be in person? Internet-based technologies like Web conferencing and tools like Microsoft Office “Live Meeting” let you make online presentations to customers. You may also be able to set up a video conferencing link with your client rather than having expensive flight, rail or mileage costs to pay.
- Have you considered having a telephone usage policy to ensure that employees are only using company phones for essential business calls?
- Do you have a travel and subsistence policy and if so, when was it last reviewed? Perhaps there are ways of reducing unnecessary expenses with careful advance planning and a “cheapest option available” policy?
- Do you have company benefits that can be reviewed? Staff may be grateful in the long term to contribute to cost saving via “unseen” savings in areas such as private health care, whilst securing their long term future
Some of these potential savings fall into areas that can be delicate to broach with staff and therefore are often left untouched. Let HCS remove the burden. We can evaluate your business' Human Capital Cost for you, discreetly and confidentially. We will provide a comprehensive breakdown of the areas where you may be able to make savings and importantly, can guide and support you through any necessary consultation process to effect those savings so you can optimise the value of your Human Capital with confidence.
Call us on 0141 776 6456 to discuss – or email enquiries@humancapitalservices.co.uk
14 May 2009, Administrator
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