One of the issues faced by many businesses, especially medium to large businesses, is a shortage of critical skills. In some cases, key skills have been reduced by cost saving programmes.
Cost saving projects often lead to roles being made redundant. Where this results in head-count reductions in support or overhead areas, the process adopted is usually viewed as the least bad option by a business struggling to shore up weak finances. However, it is possible that the result is a substantial reduction in the expertise of the business in key areas.
If these roles were truly unnecessary, they should not have been filled with people - even in good times. To cap it all, if numbers start to improve, reinstatement of the individual who has left through redundancy is tricky. You may be uncertain of the sustainability of any up-turn. Your business may have evolved to the point where you would prefer to avoid re-employing the person who left (If in doubt, take professional advice on the employment law issues).
One approach worth considering is to hire a part-time functional expert. Someone with the skills you need - but for, say, 2 days per month. Hire the right person and you will:
- Still save money
- Make best use of the unskilled / semi-skilled support people in your team
- Be able to reduce or cut the cost of this resource at short notice without worrying about the costs or complexities of UK employment law.
There are many, highly skilled, people to choose from. Make sure you verify their expertise and that their terms of business give you the control you need.
Paul - I also think this option holds good for expanding organisations, who specifically want to avoid, or cannot yet afford, or are not sure of the permanent need for, additional executive time.
ReplyDeleteMany businesses go through the growth pangs outlined by Greiner (http://fbr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/4/397), and those in charge begin to know they need further, experienced, highly skilled people - but are reluctant to employ, perhaps because of some or all of the reasons outlined by Greiner.
In the same way, but with different challenges, those hiring will need to verify expertise and contracts - and additionally, their background to see whether they're equally capable of managing expectations of those hiring professional managers or senior technicians for the first time.
Just a view...
Thanks John, interesting addition.
ReplyDelete