We have been asked to think of ways the comapny can save money otherwise redundancies...any ideas?

[dietqueen]

we all have to come up with some ways in which the company can save

what has your company cut anything lately?

get filter jugs rather than those big water bottles.
Turn off lights when you leave a room

At my last company they took all the printers and photocopier out of the departments and put them on the IT floor (top floor, 3 storey building and no lift).
theory being that you would only print it if you really really needed to. The CEO also used to sweep the printers and photocopiers and if you left anything on there he would come round and shout at you.

Not sure that it saved £££ but it helps.

Ditch water coolers
Ban travel and make everyone use conference calls
Drop overnight allowance and make everyone use time off in lieu (only works on the basis that you don't have to pay someone to cover your job)

dont order from stupid industry magazines - printer paper costs a fortune for eg.

At my Dh's firm, everyone took unpaid leave - from 3 weeks to 3 months in some cases. He took 1 month.

Drastic but it worked really well particularly in departments where they didn't want to make redundancies long term. And people had some flexibility as to when to take it (so could plan for it).

what kind of company is it?

Major expenses for most companies are rent and staff.

Is the lease near expiry? If so can it move to smaller/cheaper premises. If not, might it be able to sublet and move anyway?

Could staff take a pay cut in return for fewer hours worked? Eg I know some firms put many staff on a 4 day week and 80% pay. Alternatively, a chunk of unpaid leave as FreeButton says.

Any staff benefits that could go - ranging from free coffee through to company cars?

I know that the factory I am based from say most of their expense is water/electricity - so they installed auto off lights, low flow cisterns, auto off taps, pcs hibernate after 5 minutes non use, and encourage general green behaviour. Saves loadsa cash.

I'm sure a lot of people would like to drop to a 4 or 3 day week, even if reducing income

Travel - no first/business class, no matter how far, cap on hotels and meals.

Phone bills can add up too, esp if there are a lot of company mobiles - I know we can't have iphones as if you are roaming, they charge a fiver a day for data !

bring in your own coffee

Electricity: change the lightbulbs and turn off unless necessary. Recycle: use scrap copy paper as note pads. Cheaper coffee.

We need to know what sort of company it is. Companies I or DH have worked for have banned overtime, encouraged unpaid leave, stopped paying for tea/coffee, used only 2nd class mail, cut staff travel and where it's essential only paid economy class, stopped paying for broadband connection for staff (even although they need to be able to connect to internet for on call), cancelled the daily newspaper x hundreds, cancelled annual jolly conference, installed water meters in branch offices.

Not mend the heating, so staff have to work in overcoats and fingerless gloves.

I quit that job!

Cancel the Christmas party (a huge relief to all )

Biggest office costs.

Stationery and printing. Just turn off all printers / photo copiers.

E-Mail / Scan documents if you need to save a copy.

Tender your office stationery. if you use Nice Day / office depot then look at others as these are usually expensive and will give a discount just for asking for it.

Have a clear out and reuse stuff. Instead of people buying new IT equipment or laptop adapters make the person buying them responsible for all the old equipment and use a old adapter / monitor / chair if possible.

Make people turn off computers rather than leaving them turned on overnight. An average computer can cost 20-30p to do this. If you have 10 computers in an office that's £3 a day.

Return-one get-one. If you have pens, gloves, safety equipment or stationery operate a get one if you return one policy. Stops people leaving stuff at home and just getting another one. Works well with safety equipment.

They are doing this to fulfil their legal obligations to consult with staff by asking if they know of anyways to avoid redundancies.

Whilt all of the above ideas are good, the probably won't save enough money to avoid redundancies - staff costs tend to take up most of an organisations budget than anything else. I'm not not poo-pooing the above ideas, but doubled-sided printing and turning off your PC monitor can save money, but it won't make a dent in the salary of someone earning, say £17,000 a year (this doesn't include employer NI contributions).

WHat you need to consider, is MAJOR cost savings. Could the company not diversify into a new area of work, for example? Or get new clients?

Other ideas could be temporarily reducing everybody's hours e.g. working a 4 day week or seeing if anyone wants a career break. These could help keeps staff costs down.

People reducing their hours especially if they can let people choose the hours they want to an extent - so potentially you save on childcare costs which means you can cope with the reduction in salary.

Honestly I think you can achive 99% as much in a 6 hour working day then you can in a 7 hour day in a fairly high percentage of jobs.

my friends company went to working a 4 day week for a while.

What chanie said.

What they need is a 20% hours reduction from everyone or something.

My DPs company got rid of temp staff, everyone took a paycut/did shorter weeks, no bonus for anyone and no foreign travel, and a recruitment freeze. They also asked for voluntary redundancies.

We had a 4 day week option at 80% pay, or up to 3 months off at 30% pay. It was all voluntary though as some couldn't do without their full salary. I think they got 85% sign up in principle (which could be envoked if required), however only people who actually volunteered for it had to do it in the end

some great ideas thanks. over night stays and mobile phones could be a possible for us

Will they consider voluntary redundancy at this stage. In my old company there were quite a few long serving people in their early 50's. They were clamouring for redundancy when it was announced.

My employer is cutting 20,000 jobs- great way of saving money.

When things were truely awful in manufacturing DH offered his staff a four day week or two redundancies and then three months later a three day week or two redundancies, they took the shorter week both times. Fortunately things are better now and they are now back on 5 days with overtime and he has had no recruitment costs now things are better.

not enough of us for voluntaries really

Channie44: "Whilt all of the above ideas are good, the probably won't save enough money to avoid redundancies - staff costs tend to take up most of an organisations budget than anything else. I'm not not poo-pooing the above ideas, but doubled-sided printing and turning off your PC monitor can save money, but it won't make a dent in the salary of someone earning, say £17,000 a year (this doesn't include employer NI contributions)."

Really. I spend all day working as a consultant looking at ways of saving £100 here £200 there. Live by the motto "Watch the pennies the pounds look after themselves".

In the last 18 months I saved around £3million (just under 10%) from the clients budget with no redundancies (we've even taken staff on) and no reduction in hours or pay for staff.

It does all add up - the amount of waste in modern organisations is huge.

But hey what do I know

seeyouok - so what else would you do to save £££ in a small office based environment?