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Four strategies to make decisions that are in the best interests of your employees and your Organization
1. Hit pause immediately
Pause everything non-essential. Pause on new software or equipment. Pause on interesting ideas that might one day make money. Pause especially on hiring. Unless you are making or improving on ventilators, this is not the moment to expand.
2. Revenue is everything.
This is the time to focus on revenue. Can you consult? Are there services you can offer? What can you do in the short term, so you're not relying exclusively on a 12- to 24-month product cycle? How can you insulate yourself as much as possible?
In good times, companies can attract investment on a wish and a promise. Today, you need solid revenue to make it to the next quarter.
3. Furloughs--the best bad solution.
Furloughs are hard. You may not really know what or who the company is going to need most in a few months' time, and they still require the person to go without a paycheck for a few months.
Can any of your employees get by without that paycheck? Talk to them about it. You're offering a hedge against uncertainty--they'll have a job in the future--and maybe for some people the opportunity to spend extra time with their families right now could actually help.
4. When you have to cut, go big.
One big cut is better than many small ones, especially when you explain the situation clearly. Maybe you're cutting areas that aren't generating revenue so the parts that are can survive. Maybe you're taking the company backwards, to a smaller, simpler time when you had one product and you did it well.
What you want after the cut is for the remaining employees to feel secure and able to focus on their work. If you nibble away, cutting a few people each week, no one will get anything done, because they'll all be polishing their résumés. Or in this case, focusing the best of their attention on homeschooling their kids.
