My employer has announced a loss

JDMYOFAN

As the title says really.

Hints/Tips how to make yourself more indespensable?

I'm thinking of the following:

1) Offer a paycut. I'm willing to bite the bullet to get by, a reduced salary is better than no salary.

2) Offer overtime hours for free..

3) The company has asked us for ideas how to bring more money in (or cut spendings). I'll spend a few hours now on the forums to get more info, anything obvious I should point out?

4) Sit it out and see what happens

I informed the missus today as I was planning on some big events this year to move things forward (house), but looks like all that will now be on hold.

non_believer_2

I would suggest that you make sure you are as efficient as possible at your job. Volunteer to cover any extra tasks that come up, pick up the extra work caused by any colleagues' absence etc. I'd be wary of offering to take a paycut or to do overtime for free at this stage. I would wait until I knew more about the situation (e.g. how many jobs are likely to be made redundant) before you go down that road. After all, yours may not be one of the posts to go, so you don't want to give your employer an opportunity to cut your wages if your job is likely to be kept on anyway. You've been given the opportunity to contribute ideas on how costs can be cut, so as you suggested, contribute as many ideas as you can. This should demonstrate that you are a team player and that you are keen to contribute to the company as much as possible. Good luck, I hope it turns out ok for you.

JDMYOFAN

Thanks for the feedback, trying to work out the current outgoings, if we can cope etc.

mymatebob

nj106 wrote: »

As the title says really.

Hints/Tips how to make yourself more indespensable?

I'm thinking of the following:

1) Offer a paycut. I'm willing to bite the bullet to get by, a reduced salary is better than no salary.

2) Offer overtime hours for free..

3) The company has asked us for ideas how to bring more money in (or cut spendings). I'll spend a few hours now on the forums to get more info, anything obvious I should point out?

4) Sit it out and see what happens

I informed the missus today as I was planning on some big events this year to move things forward (house), but looks like all that will now be on hold.

You will make yourself very popular with your colleagues if you choose 1 or 2 - NOT.

Staff costs are a high proportion of any company (see the recent report on the BBC Radios wage bill) so any employer wants value for money.

You mention overtime - rather than saying you will do it for nothing look at ways that if can be reduced for the company as a whole?

Can working patterns be changed so that all the work is covered but in a more creative way.

If the company want to reduce the wage bill they may come to all the employees asking about reduction in salary. Then you can collectively have a sensible discussion about that.

Can anyone work from home, can the workplace be reduced in size saving on rent/light/heating etc.

What "perks" can you identify that could be got rid off?
Use of taxis, subscriptions to newspapers or magazines, flights to business meetings? Could the use of internet conferencing improve the way your company works?


Just a couple of quick thoughts but to be honest I would not go and sacrifice your self as it may backfire.

TotallyBroke

I agree with mymatebob. Find other ways of the company saving money before offering to have everyone take a salary cut or do overtime for free.
You maybe able to afford to bite the bullet but others will not.

mymatebob

QUOTE REMOVED AT OPS REQUEST



Remember you need to be looking at the company as a whole ( no matter what size) so you might want to suggest home working as a solution for staff but not then offer to have your pay cut as well.

Is the computer equipment owned or leased? Do you have a support contract?
Does the company have any company cars?
Are they personal issue, could they become pool cars?

Do you have access to the accounts to see where the money is going (and coming from)?
What new areas of business could your company encompass.
Is there an advertising budget - could that be better spent?

mymatebob

It is not just about you working from home but could they have enough home workers to mean that the number of PCs at the workplace could be reduced?
The space reduced, the heating etc reduced?
More hot-desking?

If people worked from home their hours could be adjusted, for example you could start over an hour earlier, and someone may be able to finish later thereby giving longer cover to the company for no outlay on their part or loss on yours.
Not everyone can work at home - no space for example - and the company would need to ensure that any computer space was DSE compliant.

Do they need an in-house IT department or could most if not all of it be outsourced? (Not a solution you will want to hear I assume)

Bean_Counter

All the ideas about cutting costs are great as most companies will be able to make efficiency savings.

To come at it from a slightly different angle, it is more often cashflow that will make or break a company. You'll know your customers better than we do, do you know if they are slowing down on payments and extending payment terms? Are there ways you can speed up payments from customers? Here is a link that might give some ideas that you could adapt to your own circumstances.

JDMYOFAN

Yep I understand where you're coming from regarding outsourcing IT departments, yet we support the internal databases which are complex beyond belief! (I never designed them). It's been talked about in the past but is FAR more cost effective having an internal department rather than simply outsourcing! We're in use all hours of the working day

bryanb

Hard to offer any more suggestions without knowing what the company does (did I miss that?)

emeraldbugle

Has the company announced they are wanting to make redundancies?

Making a loss, does not mean the company will go under. As Bean Counter mentioned, cash flow is the key.

What type of business is it? Are you invoicing customers? What about Invoice Discounting?

Are there any areas for a salary sacrifice scheme? Pensions, cars, this would reduce the employer's NI liability.