Fiscal Smarts
by Miki Saxon
The markets are in turmoil, the economy sucks, borrowing has gone the way of the dodo bird and businesses large, small and micro are looking to cut costs while still motivating their people.
For many companies this means a change in corporate culture, but which changes will have the most impact?
Short answer: creating/enhancing a culture of fiscal intelligence.
Long answer: a transparent culture that spends its money wisely, sharing the reasoning with its people, eliminating low ROI frills and cuts without selling the company’s future down the drain.
This doesn’t mean substituting crappy coffee for the good stuff and eliminating free soda or M&Ms as so many companies do.
It does mean listing all the frills—executive and worker alike—and polling your people to find which are really paying off and which can be scrapped—not a decision made by management, but one that your people hash out and agree to before it’s a done deal.
Sometimes good coffee and soda have a higher ROI morale-wise than you would think.
All this should be doubly true for startups, but it often isn’t. Yes, your money is banked and if you’re VC funded, as opposed to angel, chances are you’re pretty flush—but having it doesn’t mean you should spend it.
Any company that thinks cushy perks are attractive in this economy think again.
Think just how naïve/ignorant/arrogant a candidate must be to expect a large sign-on bonus or fancy perks given current economic conditions.
Not to mention how financially stupid any company still offering them appears to a candidate.
The smartest companies build fiscally intelligent corporate cultures from the beginning, so that when they have to tighten down they know exactly where to cut and their people aren’t surprised.
Throwing money around is always stupid, whether in business or personally.
I’ve heard from companies of all sizes and managers at all levels why this one candidate was worth X more than anyone else walking and how not getting her could deal a crippling, or even lethal, blow to the company.
If you ever feel that way, remember two inimitable truths.
- If not having that one specific person could bring down the company it’s probably going to crash and burn anyway.
- The candidate who joins you for money will always leave for more money.
Remember, the goal is a lean, mean, innovative, motivated machine—not a lean, mean, depressed one.
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Image credit: flickr
