From honing our budgeting skills to understanding the signs that a company is in financial trouble, there are many things we can do as employees to help avoid layoffs. Employees can work together to reduce costs and keep everyone employed.
Transparency is Key
We don’t have to accept lay-offs as a necessary cost-cutting measure any longer – not if employers learn to be more transparent and honest regarding their business operations and finances. By fostering an environment in which both employer and employee can openly discuss the outlook of the company, the collective power of the workforce can be harnessed to minimize expenses without resorting to laying off large swaths of staff. This mutual trust also pays long-term dividends by boosting morale and driving greater productivity and loyalty.
When faced with a financial crisis, laying off hard-working individuals can be an overwhelming and heartbreaking solution. However, there is another way – through an honest partnership between employers and employees. With collective creativity, employees can collaborate to contribute ideas that reduce costs without eliminating jobs. Empowering the workforce to establish long-term solutions and mutual benefits allows companies of all sizes to weather any storm and come out the other side strong and full of hope for a better future, built together by a unified workplace community.
Can it work?
Companies across industries have managed to prevent any need for layoffs by being transparent and honest with their employees. Take, for example, Cook Fox Architects, who could have downsized in response to budget cuts but instead relaid how the danger of a looming recession can create negative impacts on the company and leverage that to motivate the team to make conservative financial decisions. Instead, their open communication allowed most staff members to make collective changes with money-saving measures that led them away from layoffs and increased essential project work. A similar case emerged at Toyota Motor Europe, which decided to invest further in technology upskilling for staff—and saw an improved bottom line due to making these strategies available. It is clear then that businesses have found great success across multiple realms and contexts when they meet difficult situations with full transparency and a commitment to their staff’s future.
Even my own employer can be used as an example. Several years ago, we were facing a looming budget crisis. Clear communication and a call for ideas to cut costs were communicated throughout the organization. The collective thinking power of the entire company turned around the bottom line and created an environment where we now operate at a surplus.
Empowerment
There is a solution to the problem of layoffs, and it lies in empowering employees. The collective effort of everyone within a company to share information about the company’s outlook and reduce unnecessary costs can lead to drastic change. It’s time for everyone to come together and contribute their knowledge and skills; only then will we be able to create an environment where employers remain resilient in tough times by finding new solutions. Let’s use this flourishing workplace model and spread the message – encourage your employer to actively involve employees in analyzing the business’s state with loyalty, honesty, and open dialogue. With enough incentive, they can make layoffs a thing of the past.
It’s time for us to re-evaluate the way we think about layoffs. No company should take employees away from their families or a person’s livelihood without seriously considering their options. Instead, let’s stop thinking of layoffs as the only possible answer and work together to find meaningful ways to avoid them. With collaboration and a shared commitment to understanding our businesses better, employers can look at other creative solutions that don’t involve letting go of valuable team members. Together, we can protect each other’s security by pooling our collective intelligence and power to create a more sustainable approach to managing our organizations.