When order books shrink, cutting your workforce might seem to be the only option. But think of the downside. When your people lose their jobs, you lose essential skills.
Implementing new working hours is a real, valid alternative that can help you safeguard your future by keeping skills in the business and your people in work.
Whether you’re looking for a short-term solution to help you counter the immediate economic crisis or a long-term strategy to bring your business in line with changing customer demands, you’d do well to look hard at your people’s working hours and shift patterns. Ask yourself one simple question – are they aligned to the needs of the business, or just a product of history?
If the answer is the latter – and (let’s face it) many businesses work the way they do for no good reason other than because ‘it’s always been that way’ – you need to think again.