Countless times last year, architects were called into a principal’s office and told they were being laid off: the depressed economy brutalizing the blameless. That thousands of professionals have lost their jobs is bad enough, but the psychological harm to the firm and those lucky enough to remain can also be damaging. With the possibility that more layoffs will occur this year, how can firm principals make staff cuts less painful? To what extent can and should you delay the inevitable? When everyone knows the ax is about to fall, how do you maintain staff morale? How do you conduct the dreaded conversation? How can you make a person’s departure less painful?
Firm principals and industry consultants offer a variety of suggestions. Hugh Hochberg, a principal of the Seattle-based consulting firm The Coxe Group, says he has observed several strategies for postponing the day of reckoning. These include across-the-board salary cuts, shortened work weeks, unpaid furloughs, outright layoffs, and combinations of these. Voluntary early retirements have been less viable this year than in the past because retirement funds were slashed in the banking crash. In a professional services firm, where the greatest expense is payroll, there are few options for belt-tightening.
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