10 Expert Tips for Managing During Tough Times

For all you non-Twitter users (or those who have yet to start following either IncMagazine or TheHiringSite), I wanted to share with you this piece Inc. was tweeting about today: “The Ultimate Business Tune-up for Times Like These” is a compilation of advice and anecdotes from 23 successful entrepreneurs.

While I can’t help but agree just a tad with one reader who felt it reeked too heavily of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” for his taste, I still think it’s worth a read - at the very least, you might take comfort in seeing how other people are weathering the storm.  But at the most, you’ll gain some good tips that you can cater to your own workplace needs.  

You can read the entire list here, but I’ve broken it down to my 10 favorite – and most relevant to employee engagement and retention – below:  

1. Bring Back the Fun (George Nadaff, Boston Chicken) Nadaff gained his latest marketing idea from his days at Boston Chicken, when one of the employees would dress up in a giant chicken costume to garner attention and give out coupons. Today, he uses the same tactic at his new business, UFood Grill, but with giant French fries costumes and giant yogurt costumes instead. The gimmick has paid off – not only by bringing some levity to the landscape in downtown Boston, where his stores are based – but with an 8 percent increase in revenue.
2. If You Cut, Cut Deeply (John Mackey, Whole Foods) If you have to make cuts, Mackey advises, “it’s important to make the cuts deep enough so that you won’t have to do it again soon.” Employees might forgive one round of cuts, but a second incident will create a sense of distrust and panic among your people.
3. Think Young (Scott Cook, Intuit) Encourage even your youngest employees to share their ideas and then help them see those ideas through. This is the premise for Intuit’s Idea Jams, where ideas from the company’s employees are suggested, recognized, and funded to accelerate innovation.
4. Pay Employees to Quit (Tony Hsieh, Zappos.com) During the first month of training, Zappos offers new employees $2,000 to quit, plus their time worked. The radical-sounding practice ends up saving the company money in the long-run, because those employees who turn down the offer stay loyal to the company for a long time.
5. Expand Employees’ Minds (Bernie Marcus, The Home Depot) Marcus credits The Home Depot’s culture of training employees and recognizing their accomplishments with its success. “Training sometimes seems like a small thing, but it is actually the first step in empowering people to do their jobs well,” he says.
6. Market More, Not Less (Jenny Craig) “Rather than cut staff, we have gone against the conventional wisdom and advertised to bring in more business. While our competitors were hunkering down, we would spend a bit more than we had planned, which resulted in a huge competitive advantage.”
7. Pay for Leads (Paul Orfalea, Kinko’s) “Reward co-workers who deliver leads that turn into clients. Now is the time to reinforce the notion that everyone is in sales and marketing, regardless of his or her job title.”
8. Plan for the Upturn (John Chambers, Cisco Systems) Create a plan now for how you are going to gain share and differentiate yourself from your peers once the recession is over. The slowdown provides an opportunity to build even stronger relationships and differentiation with your customers.
9. Get Crazy (Robert Stephens, Geek Squad) Geek Squad is urging its employees to “pursue crazy-ass ideas” with a program called Action Figures. Not only does it cut costs and produce better products, but it also encourages employees to “aspire to things beyond their current timecard,” says Stephens. “You find a lot of companies that chase only billion-dollar ideas. That’s the quickest way not to get billion-dollar ideas. This, on the other hand, is how you innovate on the cheap.”
10. Be Brutally Honest (Keith McFarland, McFarland Strategy Partners) “Take an honest look at what revenue is likely to do over the next year. Then, reduce it by 10 percent and adjust your business plan to that revenue number. Don’t take the coward’s way out by making across-the-board cuts. Figure out where your core leverage points are in your business model and make sure these are adequately funded. Cut anything that is not in the 20 percent of the activities that generate 80 percent of the results. Once you have scoped the business, get your folks together and talk to them honestly about the environment ahead and what you are doing to address it. Show a sense of confidence. But if your business is likely to encounter turbulence ahead, signal that you fully grasp the situation and are taking action.”

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on February 2, 2009
• Have a response? Join the discussion.
• Categories: Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Employer Advice