Recruitment Insight

If you have to make cutbacks in your business / team, consider these four points first!

Like many of you, I've been spending the last few months at home, working remotely and juggling work with looking after the children and trying to home school them, but I've been back to work full-time as of Monday.  I, like many of you have had to ask some really tough questions and one of the questions which has come up recently is,  Where can we make cutbacks? Where can we trim the fat? How can we survive the next few months and be ready for the bounce back?

I've had calls this week with many Co-Founders, Founders, CEOs of start-ups,  some of the conversations and the tips that I've had to put in place myself. They're really quite good and I wanted to share them with you. For those who are gonna be making cutbacks, there's a couple of things to take into consideration.

1. Look at you lowest poor-performing members of staff whether that's in Sales, Marketing, Customer Success.

If you've got the metrics it's quite easy to look at those with the worst performance, so that's the bottom 10% anything beyond 10% is gonna be a tough call but in these times we do have to make tough decisions.

2. You have to look at the Last In First Out scenario. 

Like you, we've been fast-growing over the last several years and taking on staff. Unfortunately, you have to look at the Last In First Out scenario, harsh but true 'cause ultimately, you've got to look at those members of staff. Are they going to be able to provide the skill, knowledge and resource when the bounce-back happens?

3. How can we reposition our staff? 

If you've got front line sales people there is a really good point that they should be focusing or transitioning in to Customer Success. Whilst we are not on the phone or out meeting customers, can we retain those customers? Ultimately, MMR – monthly recurring revenue is what drives a lot of the business we work with. The other point is, can you get some of your field Sales people to work and support Marketing? There's a lot to be said for a multi-skilled business and multi-skilled teams, it's worth identifyng which staff you are able to reposition.

4. We've got to be lean,  but not too lean. 

When there is a bounce-back depending on the bounce-back whether it's a V, which we were hoping optimistically is going to bounce right back or whether it's a swoosh, slow and steady that remains to be seen,  but we've got to be lean but not too lean. If we can have our core skills staff when things bounce-back, have you got the right staff in place? Before getting rid of anybody or terminate any one's contract, you've really got to think, would I want them on my team for the bounce-back? If the answer is yes I would, then I would second guess whether you should terminate the contract in the first place.

These are some of the tips I've been discussing with my clients. Hopefully, some of those points are going to be good for you. If you have any questions regarding this article, feel free to contact me on LinkedIn.

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