When a companys in trouble are there any tell tail signs?

Legacy_user

Our work has got slack now since February, management say "Oh there is work coming" but we've not seen any, and have been offered the chance to take days off if we want without pay of course, we are a manufacturing company and materials have ran out and no more has arrived, I think its going t*ts up but management keep saying other wise, if it was going down the drain would management tell you the truth anyway? What are the tell tale signs?

getmore4less

You have described some of them.

Who works in accounts are they looking for a new jobs yet.

Any sales people left recently.

Do you normaly keep stock or do JIT.
No stock could be sign the suppliers are not getting paid or no work(JIT)

Any free stuff stopped.

Any cut backs on expences for those that get them.

Any dependanicies on customers that are in trouble.

Normal maintanence not happening

The one you need to worry about is getting paid have they ever been late with wages, that is a sign cash flow is tight.

Any managers taking extra time off or away(going for interviews)

can you use holiday for the extra days of or is it unpaid ony

System

It's unpaid only, no one has left and the sickening thing is while the average guy on the floor are be offered days off, supervisors etc are still milking overtime stand around doing nothing, some of our customers especially the big ones are struggling.

Benthosboy

FWIW, I wouldn't trust the management as far as I could throw them. They will probably keep telling you that everything is okay right up to the moment when they tell you that the firm is closing down. They'll take eveything that they can get their greedy hands on and the shopfloor oiks can take a running jump.

Martyn.

ceridwen

nirelandguy wrote: »

Our work has got slack now since February, management say "Oh there is work coming" but we've not seen any, and have been offered the chance to take days off if we want without pay of course, we are a manufacturing company and materials have ran out and no more has arrived, I think its going t*ts up but management keep saying other wise, if it was going down the drain would management tell you the truth anyway? What are the tell tale signs?

Well - the only thing for sure is they WON'T tell you the truth - employers just dont do that in my experience:(

JWF

One other significant sign is increasing times for payment of supplier invoices, but you'll need to know someone in accounts to find that out.

wuckfit

One that I spotted once was something quite simple - a lack of paper towels in the kitchen and toilets for a number of weeks. very soon afterwards the company posted a notice for volutary redundancies. too many managers insult the intelligence of their staff by thinking they won't notice these things. When the notice went up, I wasn't suprised.

ceridwen

I would think one good sign would be the most capable staff leaving.

So - work out who are the staff that are still in the "career-minded" agegroup and decide which ones you think other employers would like to employ if they had the chance (ie capable/well-presented/etc) and then watch this group of "poachable people" you have identified and see if they start resigning and finding other jobs.

I think we can all work out quite quickly who are the most "promising/capable" staff there are in our workplace - so they are the ones to watch.....

The phrase "rats deserting the sinking ship" comes to mind:cool: - but you cant blame these people for leaving "whilst the going is good" - so if they dont rate your firm - then I suggest you dont either.

patman99

How long have you been there?.

Also, remember, they can't make mass redundancies (20+ people) without having a 30 day consultation period.

Who are your employers, and what sector do they operate in?.

I work for a multi-national HVAC company, and we are really scrabbling for orders at the moment. We have just finished our 30 day consultation, and are now awaiting head office to make their final decision.

Gothicfairy

In my place it was small things, the kettle broke and did not get replaced.
There was no paper towels in the rest room and the coke machine (which had to be paid for ) was removed.
Also manager types started taking early retirement or suddenly getting new and better jobs.

The big thing really was that the computers we needed to do our jobs were breaking and not being repaired or replaced.

System

Well going by the above things do seem to be a bit far of yet, so i'll just go with the flow but keep a good eye out.