That sounds drastic, and, well, it is.  But so are Fast’s problems.  “Q2 results came in at $34 million – which is less than the same quarter last year (Q2 2006 saw a revenue of $39 million),” reports Adriaan Bloem on CMS Watch.  “Instead of an optimistic growth of about 40%, it’s actually down 12%, and means the company is now losing money.”

Also, Fast just completed its $23 million acquisition of RetrievalWare, and while the move was voluntary, it’s got to hurt the old bottom line.

So, is axing 128 folks the best way to accumulate money?  That remains to be seen, but Bloem doesn’t think things are looking good.  “Will this affect professional services, which as readers of the Enterprise Search Report will know, we already described as somewhat overstrained?  Will you lose the comfort of an office near you?  And as much as sales people may seem tangential to your success, if you’re in the middle of a selection or proof-of-concept, you’re not likely to enjoy a stranger answering the phone.”

I’ll give credit to Search Engine Journal’s Loren Baker for spotting this story.  Oh, and a money-saving note to Fast: a lot of store-brand food tastes just fine.

Get Real

When you have people with the knowledge and expertise to handle specific roles and they spend their precious time on basic administration, organisations are wasting huge amounts of money paying people to do tasks which would best be handled by a fully trained administrative assistant.

These tasks can be delegated if there was someone there to delegate to. This would free them up to do what they do best. They may not require full-time support. Perhaps one assistant could assist two managers?

Make sure you don’t have managers who will take it on themselves to help their assistant out as the assistant is overloaded! That doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen this happen many times where the manager feels guilty delegating tasks to his assistant because they know that person is already stretched to the maximum.

“Everyone Knows …”

To be effective in any role we need to be organised. Too often it is taken for granted that “everyone knows” how to organise themselves, their time, their paperwork. That’s a myth! If they did then there wouldn’t be so many stressed out people in the workplace working long hours and being unable to cope with their workloadsand I wouldn’t be in business!

Cut Costs Without Cutting Your Own Throat

If your organisation is or has already cut resources to the bone, whatever you do make sure that those people remaining continually keep improving their skills so that they can perform to the best of their ability.

Be careful the cost cutting strategies don’t burn your people out so they end up leaving.t can cost an organisation thousands of dollars to replace a valuable employee.

The Final Word

Learning how to be better organised will help you and your team be more productive. If you’re more productive you feel better about yourself, you’re less stressed, you get more done and therefore have more time. And in this fast-paced society isn’t that what many people want? More time for themselves, and their families.

Can You Really Improve Your Organisation Skills?

I’m sure most of you have heard of Zig Ziglar International Sales Guru. Well in one of Zig’s weekly newsletters, there were a number of comments about the habits of well-organised people which I couldn’t resist sharing with you.

What are the habits of well-organised people?

Can a person be ‘taught’ skills that will make them organised, or is that a quality you either possess or lack?

We asked those questions of our readers and here are some of their responses:

“I think that natural abililty has to be coupled with good training to fully develop skills such as being organised.”

“Thankfully, organisation skills are learned. The first requirement is DESIRE. The second is WORK! By consistently using such tools as a well thought out set of goals, a planner and a PRIORITISED daily “to do” list, I have made a positive difference in my personal and professional life.”

“A well-organised person reviews their actions each day. They assess where mistakes were made, identifying ways to eliminate those mistakes in the future. They assess areas for improvement. They also plan out their day ahead of time. These habits can be learned by anyone.”

“Improving your organisation skills is teachable and there are hundreds of tools to help you achieve that end. But first I have to “want” to learn that skill. I have to see the need and the resultant advantage to me and my business and then I will be willing to learn a new skill.”

“Orderliness is a character trait. Organisation is an outcome of that trait. Character qualities are learned behaviours that develop throughout our whole lives – not just while we are children.”

“Yes, everybody can be taught organising one’s life. It’s only a question of changing habits, however, everything is connected. You cannot be a complete mess in your personal life and expect to be perfectly organised in your business life.”

So you see it doesn’t matter who or what you are, anybody can learn the basic fundamental skills and experience the daily benefits of being organised.

It’s just a case of recognising that you need to improve in that area and as mentioned in one of the comments, you have to have the desire to change. Of course the next thing you have to do is take action!

Then you too can experience the benefits of being organised such as having more time to do what you want to, improved confidence, having more control over your life, reducing your stress and feeling good!

It’s all up to you.

*Previously published at ArticleCity.com

Lorraine Pirihi is Australia’s Personal Productivity Specialist and Leading Life Coach. Her business The Office Organiser specialises in showing small business owners and managers, how to get organised at work so they can have a life! Lorraine is also a dynamic speaker and has produced many products including “How to Survive and Thrive at Work!”

To subscribe to her free ezine visit www.office-organiser.com.au

Downsizing Does Not Always Produce Desired Profits
Some studies have shown fewer than 30 percent of downsized firms received expected profit increases. Typically, this is because of a failure to break away from the traditional organizational design and managers continue to use old command, control, and compartmentalization principles.

Resist Across-the-board Layoffs
This jettisoning approach calls for cuts across all levels in the firm. One major airline learned this lesson well when they did an across-the-board downsizing only to learn they could not provide service with so few baggage handlers. An across-the-board cut is a signal that the management team has not completed due diligence to workforce planning and processes. GE uses Top Grading Performance System to rank employees into A, B, or C performance categories each year. When it comes time for downsizing, the employees most likely to be cut are the ones with the lowest performance scores, allowing GE to keep their top talent and cross train them if necessary.

Only Pay for Outplacement Services That Are Utilized
Many executives as well as workers have been through one, two, or even three downsizings. A June 1999 HR Magazine article recounted that AT&T has provided outplacement services since 1985. However, they have found that fewer than one-fifth of downsized workers take advantage of outplacement services or retraining opportunities. If contracting for external outplacement services, ensure the contract is worded so that your organization is not paying for services that employees do not utilize or want. Paying full workshop price that only has one person attending is not a good use of the stockholder’s money. Repetitive downsizings, low unemployment coupled with free resume/interview information on the internet allows individuals to adjust, rebound and reposition themselves in the job market quickly.

Redesign Jobs/Eliminate Unnecessary Tasks
Lee Hecht Harrison recently completed a survey of 500 HR executives. One-third of those polled felt that their company had let too many employees go. The survey also found that one-third of the companies that downsized since 1994 restored at least some of the jobs that had been cut. Best practices include redesigning job expectations to prevent having too few people doing inefficient operations or simply eliminating unnecessary tasks.

Plan The Downsizing Waves
Repetitive waves of downsizings adversely affect employee morale, organizational commitment and motivation. One well-planned downsizing after talking with an employment attorney allows an organization to recover quicker. If survivors are managed well with communications of future vision, productivity loss can be minimized.

Don’t Lose Your Intellectual Capital/Top Talent
Intellectual capital is an organization’s seed corn. Typically, during downsizing, top talent will by recruited by other firms or jump ship leaving an organization with only marginal workers. Cap the number of early retirement offers so that only a certain percentage can retire from each unit. AT&T was crippled in some offices during an earlier downsizing when every eligible employee elected to take the early retirement.

Improve Processes/Better Way of Doing Business
In the budget-driven approach of downsizing, resource allocations define the number of employees the firm can afford instead of seeking more effective methods of doing business. Before downsizing, ask employees how costs might be contained. During the fuel price jump this summer Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines sent a letter to each employee seeking ways to save $5.00. Employees responded with recommendations that resulted in the savings of millions of dollars. If downsizing is the necessary strategy, use lots of communications to explain to employees, customers and vendors why personnel cuts are necessary.

Tie Compensation to Success
Align a percentage of compensation “at risk” in exchange for attaining pre-established business goals, or offer bonuses that are based upon the economic performance. Implement career development plans to help the employees become more involved with new vision, teamwork, problem solving and continuous learning. Ongoing training and evaluation of employees at all levels should be a priority.

Downsizing Reflects Progress
Despite a decade of downsizings, the American economy has quietly grown richer. Unemployment is at an all time low and the number of jobs has continued to grow. The driver of downsizing is competition. IBM was squeezed by the introduction of personal computers (Compaq, Intel, Microsoft). Sears suffered from new retailers (Wal-Mart, Home Depot). Bell Telephone downsizing reflected loss of market share to MCI, Sprint and other carriers. These new companies generated far more and better jobs than the old ones lost and we as consumers have more value at less cost. The alternative to these downsizings would have been to maintain the inefficiencies that the old companies represented.

Freda Turner teaches at the University of Phoenix and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. She may be reached at fturner@email.uophx.edu.

Employee Churning Cost Stockholders Money
Lee Hecht Harrison, a firm that works with organizations in pre and post downsizing evolutions, engaged the Global Strategy Group to conduct a survey of 500 U.S. senior human resource professionals whose organizations had downsized at least once in the past three years. The research findings reported, “More than a third of the organizations re-hired employees who had been downsized . . .. More than half of the downsizing organizations created new positions to meet emerging needs.” Therefore, it appears that if organizations do a better job at identifying new business strategic needs, they could minimize employee-churning costs. According to David L. Stum, Ph.D., President of the Loyalty Institute, an Ann Arbor based research firm, “The cost of replacing an employee in today’s market is roughly one half of that person’s annual salary.” Replacement costs can include, “finding applicants, interviews; pre-employment testing and admin expenses; medical exams; travel/moving expenses and training.” Add new hire expenses with expenses associated with termination and this can be very expensive quickly. Best practices relating to employee churning include some of the following alternatives.

Minimizing Corporate Losses When Churning Employees
Train Current Employees. Utilizing the current talent pool, stakeholders could better be served by retraining current employees to fill shortages in vacant or newly created positions. This would save stockholders the costs of funding severance and recruiting of employees. Research reflects that even older workers can master new technologies as quickly as younger employees, and are just as flexible in accepting new work assignment. With more competitors in the marketplace, cross training current employees is not only cost effective, it ensures organizations a more loyal workforce already familiar with the corporate culture and policies.

Phased Retirement could minimize churning expenses. A Washington Post article highlighted the consequences of a downsizing evolution that negatively impacted the Washington, DC government. The downsizing of 3,200 people saved the local administration $100 million. However, the downsizing eliminated 64,000 years of experience. Included were an inspector who knew every bolt in the city’s bridges and a computer information services manager whose departure led to a failure to perform simple virus inspections leading to a huge systems crash. Offering employees a phased retirement opportunity is a win-win. It provides the organization access to the employee’s knowledge while providing employees opportunities to scale down their work hours and income on a gradual basis.

Minimize Outplacement Costs Through Strategic Alliances. If downsizing is still necessary, another cost-effective step is to partner with other organizations. For example, Emery Worldwide Airlines is eliminating 4,200 employees nationwide. The U.S. Postal Service, partnering with Emery, is hiring a number of the downsized Emery employees. This is a cost-effective win-win for employees, Emery, and the Postal Service because the employees are trained in mail handling and come with background and medical clearances. When Bank of America initiated a technology downsizing, they partnered with Citibank in which many Bank of America employees transited into Citibank positions. Winn-Dixie saved outplacement and unemployment funds during their work force reduction when a number of their trained employees quickly transited to other grocery-related industries. This strategy saves employees from the uncertainty of unemployment and reduces the severance and unemployment costs to the downsizing organization.

Timesizing. This strategy allows an organization to keep its talent by modifying the number of hours employees work each week. Employees at a unionized Saturn company voted to work four hours less each week to avoid an organizational downsizing. This provided a win-win for the employees, organization, and taxpayers. Business picked up and the trained workforce resumed their previous 40-hour work schedule.

While downsizing is always an undesirable corporate happening, the unemployment stats reflect that the downsized employee is no longer the loser. The shortage of available workers, on-line technology and an abundance of self-help career books have provided downsized employees opportunities to quickly find new employment opportunities. It appears the losers are the stockholders, and the organizations that have enjoyed less then 30 percent success rate toward increasing profits after downsizing. This financial picture can be turned around if leadership teams accurately project their future strategic needs and minimize employee churning.

Freda Turner teaches at the University of Phoenix and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. She may be reached at fturner@email.uophx.edu.