Do’s & Don’ts of Cost Savings in Organization

In Pakistan these days, Cost cutting is much IN than anything else. You might have seen your colleagues, higher officials planning and controlling strategies for cost savings to the maximum level for avoiding any other damages to workforce of the organization or rest of the important assets.

Workforce is the first target or option when any organization plan to minimize their OPEX (operational Expenditures) in simple “cost of doing things done”, and the most common practice that is immorally done by any organization is sudden layoffs without justifying any reason but just with simple argument that Sorry – We cannot afford you anymore!

Without going in to this detail that why organizations choose employees as a first option for cost saving and meeting expenditure demands – let me only talk about how a Pakistani organization can save cost in just simple steps and use layoffs as the last ACE card for cost controlling game.

Do’s of Cost Savings

Energy Saving Techniques:

1.    SAY NO! to Employees Late office Sittings – Very common culture  you can observe in every 2nd organization , where most of the time employees only sit to project an image of being very dedicated and like they are performing with Extra effort to done tasks in efficient way.

I believe maximum amount of “COST” can be controlled, if organizations just start promoting with compliance the slogan “SAYS NO! to LATE OFFICE TIMINGS”.

2 – SAY NO! to always ON Non-Automated Workstations: Another silent disease or kind of a custom that office workstations remain “SWITCHED ON” even when there is no use. They remain on for 24 hours without any output for the company matters. Staff must turn off their workstations while leaving office for home with their display device as well.

I believe this could not only save company cost on energy expenditures, but also help organizations going Green.

3.    Use of Energy Saving Technology Gadgets: There are 100 of gadgets for energy savings that require only “one time investment” and then they can give organization an extra edge to manage their energy savings. The common gadgets use to save energy are Occupancy Sensors by using this gadget only light will switch on when some space is occupied in the organization otherwise it will automatically switch off. Well this is only one gadget I discussed you can search numerous gadgets for saving energy.

The use of these gadgets is common in MID-EAST like Dubai, Abu-Dhabi and etc, though “YOU” and “ME” both know they have enough resources for energy but still it is very common there; and this point might remain food for thought for us!

Organization Internal Environment Changes:

  • Paperless environment instead of using papers for every 1st and 2nd reason while doing any task.
  • Virtual Meetings, instead of using company’s vehicles to visit East Region office or XYZ region office staff. This can not only help in saving costs, but also helps in saving the “SCARCE resource” i.e. TIME
  • STOP Usage of RFID Scanners or limit its use (these are the devices to let you check IN in office and CHECK OUT by using thumb impression, face recognition or any other biometric identification). Instead of investing in RFID scanners, organizations can use simple IP cams to recognize the employee for entering or leaving the organization by only using a face recognition option instead of thumb impression. They can get face recognition software’s only in some bucks online and can reduce the thousand dollars investment in purchasing such equipments of no use.
  • You might will think about the issue of “office attendance” after not using RFID scanners, but for most of the organizations RFID scanners are a must have items.
  • Office Interior Designing / Construction Design:  By this I simply mean that construct or customize office building in a way that it should provide proper sunlight to rooms, lobbies and could be good replacement of Electric lights in winters especially. Please do not paint walls with “DIM” or “DARK” colors this will make you compel to invest more in lighting and also will not give fresh look in office.
  • Use of Laptops instead of WORKSTATION –PC’s:  Laptops are energy efficient and always require less energy to run if properly used on batteries and AC powers and organization can easily promote this culture in organization. Even instead of being on standby GEN SETS with work stations, LAPTOPS can easily cope up with 1 hour energy load shedding.
  • Prohibit employees mobile chargers
  • Design and construct ventilated windows washrooms with less exhaust fans
  • Try to promote telecommuting culture of task done, no matter from home or somewhere else – This will not only help in reducing cost, but it will also increase value of telecommuting by employees.

Don’ts of Cost Savings / Cost cuttings:

These options must be opted in the start of cost saving plan but in bottleneck conditions organization never cares about them:

  • Never Cut Employee Trainings @ first
  • Never cut employee Entertainment Budgets, but only limit it to some extent for specific period of time.
  • Never lower the quality budgets of meals for employees.
  • Don’t stop appraisals
  • No to lay Offs

Guys! I can list lot of Do’s and Don’ts of Cost Savings techniques but one important thing every organization and employees need to think and feel is “IF THIS ORGANIZATION WILL SURVIVE , YOU WILL SURVIVE”, so take care of it like you do of your own self.

But, unfortunately, most of the time this does not come into our common practices. Try to make common practice in your working and non working environment to live and survive at healthier place than having layoffs and some other pretends and sometime unavoidable reality to cost controls.



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