During these rough econic times, what should a company with about 3,000 employees do to cut expenses?

Question

During these rough econic times, what should a company with about 3,000 employees do to cut expenses?

Answer 1

It depends on whetehr small cuts will do the trick, or more draconian methods have to be used.

layoffs are one option.  

curtail company events like lunches and picnics.

Stop benefits like off-site meetings and unnecessary travel.

Ensure that people switch off their computers, fans, lights, and equipment before leaving for the weekend or before leaving on vacation.

cancel all raises and bonuses for senior management - to show the rank & file that you are sharing the pain along with them.

sell all surplus equipment gathering dust in warehouses or parking lots.

Answer 2

Plenty!

First, ask National Grid for an energy audit.  Where I am (Massachusetts) there is a division of National Grid/Nstar that will come around to businesses and check out your electric lights and assess whether or not they could be replaced with more efficient ones.  Ours were old style ballasts that eat a lot of electricity.  They switched them out for us, and our usage went way down.  The best thing about the program is that they paid a high percentage of the cost, and let us finance the rest, so I am putting out about $78 per month (ours is a small business) and saving more than twice that at the same time!

They also put motion sensors on the rooms we used rarely, so unless we are in them, the lights stay off.  We no longer have to worry about remembering to shut lights off!

Next, why don't you send a memo out to all workers asking them if they can think of ways to cut costs.  Your employees surely have noticed some waste, and will probably be glad to give you their ideas.  After all, in the rough economy, they want to keep their jobs!  In some ways it could be morale-boosting for them, to know they are making a difference in keeping the company going strong.

Next, if your business does a lot of shipping, call your carrier (and a few others) and ask them for the price structure.  Let your current carrier know you are considering switching because of their prices, play a little hardball and you might be honestly shocked to see what kind of price adjustments they are willing to give you.  This can work with the phone bill, also.  Do this about once a year and it will help keep your costs down.

Depending on what you do, and how your employees work, offer to let them work from home once or twice per week.  They get the savings of not having to pay for gas, and you get the savings in decreased energy use.  Everybody is happy and everybody wins.

Alternatively, you could offer to let some employees work longer days four days per week, and stay home one day each week.  Many younger people (or most people with no kids) will gladly work ten hours in a day to trade for a long weekend!

Insist that all workers shut their computers off completely at night, including monitors and peripherals.  It only makes a little difference at home, but if you have that many people and most of them are using computers, it makes a hella big difference!  Don't buy the old story that shutting the computer down wears the computer out.  When computers had off buttons, they did eventually get worn out by usage, but now the way we shut computers down is through the operating system, and besides, those buttons are a lot stronger now than they used to be.

Don't run the A/C on weekends.  It sounds like such a DUH thing, but I have worked plenty of places where it never actually occurred to anyone to anyone until I mentioned it.

Take a walk around when the AC is on and see if your workers are wearing sweaters.  Maybe the AC is up too high.  That isn't good for your bottom line, and is actually not good for your employees health either.

Institute some in house wellness programs, like quitting smoking programs, nutritional education meetings, hosting a weight watchers meeting, and stress reduction meetings.   If you are in an industrial field, get someone to do a safety audit and possibly retrain your workers to do their jobs more safely.  Call your health care provider and ask them to help you figure out what programs to implement and how to do it.  Most health care companies have an entire division dedicated to wellness promotion.  Sick, injured, smoking, overweight and stressed workers are less efficient, take more sick days and sometimes bring down morale.  Your health care provider has a vested interest in helping your workers quit smoking, lose weight, exercise, and control stress.  If your workers are healthier, they will use their health care less often, which brings down the health care provider's expenses.  I have seen this work amazingly well.

Renegotiate contracts with vendors.  I know that even mundane things like copy paper can come a lot cheaper if you commit to buying all of your paper through a particular vendor if you use a lot of it.

If you have a fleet of vehicles, keep them tuned up and especially make sure the tires have good air pressure.  Tires that are losing air kill the MPG, and with the cost of gas being what it is, that is some real money right there!

Essentially, see where the money is going, and find ways to reduce each expense, line by line.  I wish you luck!

Answer 3

1) Find out if Meri (response # 1) is a consultant or can be contracted to work with your company.  It sounds to me like a lot of experience and knowledge behind her/his suggestions.

2) Look the other way.  Charge the marketing department with improving marketing of your company and its products/services.  In an economy like ours today, many businesses are doing less marketing and more layoffs and downsizing.  That makes for a golden opportunity to actually increase sales and market share by getting out in front of your market NOW when others are disappearing.  This tactic works wonders in the short and long term by increasing sales and revenues, and in many cases, the best way to do it is to market to your existing and prior customers.  They already know you and your products or services, so will likely trust you again if you ask them to.

With 3,000+ employees, I'm guessing your company is doing something right already.  Just beef it up, do more of it and do it better than your competition..

Oh - and contact Meri..