What is Necessary

“It’s tough,” Andrea admitted. “During the recession, we significantly reduced our workforce. We had to. Our revenues were down 40 percent, now they are up 10 percent. We are hesitant to raise headcount in the face of optimism. How do we make our decisions about how many people we need in which roles?”

“Here’s a rule of thumb,” I replied. “Don’t organize around your previous metrics of headcount. Go back to ground zero and organize around the work. What is your core work? How is it performed? What does it take to create the output for the demand you forecast? Around your core work, what supervision is necessary? And for the future, who is necessary for planning, for contingencies and alternatives?”

Andrea was nodding. “Strip away all the noise and go back to the core?”

“And only create what is necessary.”

2 thoughts on “What is Necessary

  1. mohamed

    will till you what we did, I work in a consultant company so we kept the best once in addition to the others who has multiple talents
    can work as consultant & do other things (administrative , customer service , can use useful software to the business ) .
    This take a time from each one which we keep records for & when the business starts going well this worker shift gradually to his
    original task and we hire new temp worker to takeover this works & when we became sure of the situation we keep the worker.

    Reply

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