General Options for Reducing Staffing Costs

Current Situation

Assuming we need to cut $5,000 monthly, we have some options available to us.

rfs 15:47, 23 Feb 2005 (PST)

Attrition

Attrition works like a hiring freeze. Without laying people off we wait for them to quit or reduce hours. We have a timeline that tells us when we might expect attrition. For attrition to work, the existing collective members (and volunteers) need to be able to do the work that was being done by the folks who leave.

• Clout's Store Internship ends at the end of March. Not re-upping it save $700.
• Rick goes from 28 to 20 hours in May. This saves us $475.
• Matthew's Front Desk Internship ends at the end of May. Not re-upping it save $700.
• Geiner quits sometime this summer. This saves us around $2,000.
• Marlin quits sometime around a year from now. This saves us around $1,200.

Through attrition alone (without hiring replacements) we would save in the ballpark of $5,075, but less than $2,000 is scheduled to happen before June. This means that attrition alone will not solve our problems, but measure we take now might be temporary (if we can absorb the jobs of these people into the remaining collective members as these folks quit or reduce their hours).

The effect of swapping jobs around

Swapping jobs between existing staff members does little to directly address the problem, but it does allow us to take certain measures we might otherwise not be able to. For instance, if Matthew is willing to swap hours but not quit and Jhasen is willing to reduce his hours but we can't afford to let him, swapping would allow us to consider moving Matthew into fill Jhasen's shoes and someone else to pick up the slack that Matthew's absence would create. (That's just an examplr.)