Happy New Year?

So here we are 2009 and if you believe everything you read, this is not going to be a good year, but lets face it no one really knows and experts are quite often wrong, lets just wait and see.

Today Woolworth's shut the majority of its stores although administrators have extended this deadline for certain stores in order to reduce stock levels further.

So is the end of Woolworth's? A spokesman from the administrators has said that nothing is being ruled out and a possible management buyout for some of the stores is still very much a possibility. It has also been reported that employees from these stores have come out and said that they would be willing to work for free until the new company is on its feet in order to save their jobs.

This is an interesting potential outcome, over the last 6 months I have to a number of small businesses where they have discussed a reduction in turnover due to the credit crunch and that the subject of redundancies has been mentioned. However several of the companies discussed this with their team and they offered to voluntarily reduce their hours (and in some cases work for free) in order to prevent redundancies from occurring. This is normally agreed over a set period of time and reviewed regularly.

It is important for effective communication to take place with your employees as redundancies can often be an expensive route and you might be surprised at what solutions your employees come up with.

Jon