Everyone has advice at the moment about how to manage your business during a downturn. Re-strategise, re-prioritise, re-organise and re-double efforts to contain costs and sell. One of the most sensible bits of advice I have see for a while I found in a McKinsey article.

Guthridge, McPherson and Wolf suggest that even though economic downturns can mean down-sizing, that there is still an opportunity in this process. The opportunity exists in the re-design of job roles so that there is greater autonomy, variety and span of control in order to re-energise employees that may be looking for a new challenge. It is difficult to provide career progression while down-sizing but careful planning means that you can offer a challenge and motivate key contributers during your cost cutting exercise. They will re-engage and hopefully even stay when the good times roll around again!

So if you need to down-size, fine, but keep your people strategy in mind while you do it. If your approach is aggressive and insensitive, you may find that you have no one left to deliver your business strategy once the down=sizing exercise is complete!