Business owners often deal with difficult dilemmas pertaining to their human capital. In a market like this, resource optimization could well be single most strategic activity for entrepreneurs. In my business coaching and advisory work, apart from entrepreneurs, I work with several family managed and small-medium businesses. Last year, in a Covid hit market, I noticed two kinds of resource optimization behavior.
Client A: decided to let go of most of his sales and marketing team. “Offload all heavy baggage” was their stance. The decision was purely based on numbers – higher paid ones must go, cheaper resources will stay. Juniors were banded together into one team and a team leader appointed. The client firmly believed that he was doing the right thing by taking the dead weight off his ship to keep it afloat.
Client B: decided to double down on his efforts. Team members were counseled and a reasonable pay restructuring was agreed upon. New programs were initiated – training sessions, sales process re-engineering, marketing budget optimization and 1:1 coaching for all key members. The entrepreneur held on to his best guys in the sales and marketing department, ensured regular interactions with them. The client invested in repairing the nets. Every department was trained, every resource optimized to meet the changing demands of the business. In the process, we also discovered a few time and cost saving measures.
Around Diwali last year, the market sentiment improved, lockdown restrictions were eased as Covid numbers continued to fall. Customers started trickling in. Client B embraced the opportunity and his team raked in good business between Diwali and February. The team actually performed better than ever.
Client A, however, was caught unprepared. His team was not lean mean but rather malnourished. Having learnt their lessons, I hoped to see them change their approach when the second wave and lockdowns restrictions were announced last month. Only to find out, they were cutting corners again.
I empathize with every business head who’s had to take tough calls and every employer who had to downsize a team he lovingly built. My aim through this article is to demonstrate that those labeled as white elephants might actually be dark horses that pull you through these challenging times.
Don’t abandon them just yet.