Businesses are making cuts and driving employees harder in an attempt to get through difficult times. And although that may be what you need to do to survive in the short term, you also need to consider the impact of your actions in the long term, says. S.A. “Sam” Murray, CEO of ManagEase.
“Sometimes you can’t help taking those actions if you’re looking at viability,” says Murray. “You have to make those hard choices knowing you’re going to pay the price down the road. But if you know you’re going to have to pay the price, you need to start thinking of strategies now about how you are going to regroup. You have to find the common denominator for both short-term and long-term sustainability in order to move forward in tough times but also invest in the future.”
Smart Business spoke with Murray about what to do in the short term to make sure your business is sustainable in the long term.
What mistakes are business owners making in the short term that could come back to haunt them in the long term?
One mistake employers are making is they are significantly cutting their employees’ pay and benefits at a time when many of them are working their employees to death. If it hasn’t yet cost them their good people, it will. As the economy turns, those people are going to leave because they feel the employer didn’t deal with them fairly. Business owners need to realize that the emerging work force has had this painful experience of a trashed economy, and they are going to be evaluating future opportunities for employment with a more conservative view.
How can employers communicate to employees that their company is the place to be going forward?
You need to take a fresh look at your vision and mission statements and revise them to fit where you need to go now in light of what your company has been through. Companies need to look at the reculturalization of their work force.
Engage your employees in discussions about what your vision and mission should be and what your values are as a company. Work on short-term and long-term business plans and share them with your employees. They don’t have to include all the financials, but you need to include the building blocks so they can get on board with where you’re going and have faith in your organization.
Reculturalization can only happen when authentic communication occurs, so it’s critical to get your employees involved. Too often, management forms exclusive clubs in order to hide their incompetencies, their fears and their lack of vision. They really sell their employees short and think they don’t see what’s going on. But employees really do see what’s going on, so it’s much better to be forthright with them, to tell them, ‘We need to change our vision, we need to focus on sustainability. Here are my thoughts on how to do that. What are yours?’
