Reason #1 - Increased strain on resources affects your ability to adapt to the market turn around.

While the fear of being downsized is in itself a major mental hurdle affecting employee morale and productivity, the modern lean and mean organizations look more lean and sickly (think Isabelle Caro instead of Georges St. Pierre). Downsizing has become the most common organizational response to economic downturn. “Doing more with less”, and forcing staff to expand their responsibilities to accommodate the reduced head count, often taking on the responsibilities of two or more employees has hampered many companies’ abilities to respond to any increase in market demand. Lack of organizational slack, tends to stifle innovation and adaptability - overworked employees do not have the time to look beyond the immediate demands of their roles, or to even notice the market changing. If too busy to notice changes in the market place, how can they adapt? If your team of 10 line managers have been reduced to 4 to ensure due to a reduced demand in the market, how will your firm respond when the market starts to turn? Who will even notice that the market is growing, when the whole team is too busy just “getting things done”? More importantly, if your recruitment team has been reduced, (or, as in many cases completely eliminated), who is going to staff the new openings that the turnaround will create?

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