UK jobs go at Getronics

Cowboys and....

Indians....

looks like the Indians won this time

Some have greatness thrust upon them -- and others .. hmm

In this world you don't just need to be able to do the job, you need to be so good at the job that no one can do without you. Of course, being less than that brings about lower business levels anyway, so a recession is always going to be the time of choice for employers to trim off the under performers without having to suffer too many questions about it. The big mistake some of them do is to trim off the higher earners, who often are also the high earners for the business too.

The biggest mistake I have seen over several recessions is when the money men grab control of a company normally run by technical men and save the largest part of the wage bill by sacking the sales force! I don't keep deadwood in my sales force anyway, so when a recession comes along I keep an eye out for good people being sacked by the stupid! I always need MORE salesmen when sales are thinner on the ground.

The net result is that my company has come through each recession without ever laying off a single person. By the way, a recession is a GREAT time to START a business! Why? Because you get time to get your ideas together without being over busy. You get time to sort out all those things you didn't think needed to be sorted out. The net result is that as the recession lifts, you are in great shape to take advantage of the upturn.

Who am I to say? I have been managing director of a company which sells products in forty countries for the past thirty years. I will soon retire, but right now we are selling as strongly as ever --- largely because we aren't hiding under the desk hoping for it all to go away !!