By Edward Lewellen

Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in recent months, many businesses are putting a freeze on spending, hiring, consulting, and any new projects. With what objective in mind? To preserve the bottom-line. Will it be successful? Not usually. In fact, what usually happens is that employees are de-motivated. They create their own “job-security” by slowing down and thus the bottom-line still suffers.

There are five ways to get more from the people that you currently have on staff, any new people you may to hire, and even from those employees you may still have to down-size. Let’s take a brief look at each of these five areas to understand how companies can increase their profits, not just survive this down-cycle, and come out a winner.

NUMBER ONE: Get more from your Management Team.

Management can have a huge impact on your company’s performance at any time, but during economic hardships, not only do they need to perform well, they have to perform well. So, how can you get more from them? You need to have a way to quantify their competencies. Would you agree that they need to communicate well?  Provide strong leadership? Improve themselves and their Direct Reports? Can be adaptable to change? Maintain good relationships? Be cohesive as a team? Absolutely! So, to get more from your Management Team, now is the time to get a better assessment of the people on the team, highlight their strengths and improve on their weaknesses. Your company’s profitability and productivity will improve through top-notch management.

NUMBER TWO: Get more from fewer employees.

Employees who are de-motivated by seeing their peers down-sized may create their own “job-security” through lowered production. As a consequence, instead of offering to raise wages to keep top-performers, companies may have to ask them to take a cut in pay to keep their fellow employees. To meet the this challenge, what would it mean to know their productivity style, their ability to work within a team, their natural quality of work, the degree of initiative they will take, and their ability to solve problems?  Further, would it help to get a grasp of what behaviors to expect to see when they are under continued stress, frustration, & conflict?  Or, with money being a poor motivator anyway, can you envision knowing how and what motivates your people to perform at their top-level day-in-&-day-out?

NUMBER THREE: Don’t have any “square pegs in round holes”.

Interestingly, in the aftermath of the September 11^th terrorist attacks, companies who had benchmarked the shared characteristics of their top-performers in the positions within their company saw a phenomenon. The people that most closely fit the job they were doing were the first to return to work and were the quickest to get back up to full productivity. With a huge amount of human capital available in the market, companies have the opportunity to not only be an “Employer of Choice”, but to be a choosey employer. Make sure that the people you have are in the right job. Re-engineer the job to better fit their competencies or relocate them to where they can be better performers. For those that don’t fit your company culture, it’s time to ask them to find a company that they do fit and bring someone else in to fill their place.  You can still get some valuable information from these people, though. By conducting exit interviews and matching them against the benchmark of your top-performers, you can identify traits they should have had. This should improve your future hiring process.

NUMBER FOUR: Hire people that will make you a profit every day.

Be opportunistic with your ability to be choosey.  If you have to hire someone, interview as many candidates as possible in order to select the best available. Your company not only deserves the best, you must require it.  The economy is cycling back up again and this give you the opportunity to be more selective. Hire people that will be honest, hardworking, reliable, and drug-free. Hire people that are like your top-performers. If you do, as the economy turns around, you will need to hire less people to do the same jobs, which means having an edge on your competition in your marketplace. Harland Checks, the second largest check manufacturer in the U.S., was able to reduce their workforce by 30% while keeping at or above their previous production rates using this method.

NUMBER FIVE:  Rev-up the engine of your business – your Sales Department.

Never before has it been so important that the sales people you have be able to sell well. Not just sell well, but, sell your product well! Ever heard of the 80-20 Rule?  Statistics show that 55% of all sales people shouldn’t be in sales, 25% shouldn’t be selling your product. That leaves 20% that should be selling your product, that’s why they are your top-performers! Studies show that salespeople share 5 key qualities,  Competitiveness, Self-reliance, Persistence, Energy, and Sales Drive and 7 critical sales behaviors,  Prospecting, Closing Sales, Call Reluctance, Self-starting, Teamwork, Building and Maintaining Relationships, and Compensation Preference.

How do your people compare? Do they have these qualities and behaviors? And, how different are your top salespeople versus your bottom?

These are but a few steps that can be taken to assure the survival and success of your company through the current economic situation.

Ed Lewellen is Vice President of Profiles International www.profilesinternational.com. Ed can be reached at 5205 Lake Shore Drive, Waco, TX, 254-751-1644, ext. 139 or Ed.lewellen@profilesinternational.com.