Scott Campbell says it was like catching a falling knife.
As the economy faltered over the past several years, Campbell was in a difficult position as the central Florida division president for Pulte Homes. He had to get a grasp on what the future of the homebuilding industry in the region would look like and figure out how to best maneuver his company to respond to the changes in the market.
“It actually all started back in late 2005,” Campbell says. “Nobody wanted to believe it was going to be as ugly as it has been. You’re constantly chasing your business decisions and your staffing decisions to a lower level as the market continues to deteriorate. It was, from a leadership perspective, the need to rely heavily on my management team to assist in evaluating their people and making some very difficult decisions.”
The decisions included a large-scale head-count reduction. Campbell started out as president of Pulte’s Tampa market, which at its height employed 225. Since 2005, the Tampa work force has been pared down to fewer than 50 and was combined with Pulte’s Orlando market to form the current central Florida operating division. The regional staff now employs approximately 150.
“Essentially, we reduced our staffing levels by about 70 percent over a four- to five-year period,” Campbell says. “That has been my biggest challenge, and it comes back to having to navigate through what has been one of the worst real estate cycles the country has seen since the Great Depression.”
As a division president within homebuilding giant PulteGroup Inc., which generated $3.9 billion in 2009 revenue, Campbell has had a sturdy organizational structure to lean on as he has piloted his business unit through the recession. But a lot of the burden — particularly in the areas of communication and reinforcing the culture — has fallen directly on the shoulders of Campbell and his leadership team.
It’s difficult to swim upstream, preaching a message of stability and focusing on the positive when employees are surrounded by layoffs, budget cuts and general uncertainty. But that is exactly the task Campbell faced.
He needed to handle layoffs with compassion and continue to build up the confidence of those who remained.
