Have you ever had someone stick his or her head into your office and proclaim, “We need some work.” All too often, we find ourselves in situations we really don’t want to be in. We’ve all dealt with people who are depending on you for paychecks, overhead that just won’t go away, and no work to provide the income. Yikes. There is no way to snap your fingers, say some magic words, or make a quick phone call to produce profitable work for the next day. Whenever you find yourself in a situation like that, you know all too well that the time to be doing something about it was about six months to a year ago. It’s not a good feeling.
There are stop-gap measures we can take when we have good, loyal team members with no real work to do. Of course, there’s stuff to do around the shop — projects and cleaning we’ve been neglecting for a long time often produces busy work for a short time. This is also a great time to catch up on some needed training that usually goes by the wayside. In our company, we have a list of projects that are waiting to be done around the office or shop. Remodeling, painting, and electrical work can be done by our own people much cheaper than hiring an outside firm. In addition, we have a whole library of training DVDs ready to go and a list of training each person will be needing, should the opportunity arise. While we do have a formal training program here that takes place in the fall and late winter, we always seem to have additional training or reviews that need to be done. Of course, none of these measures meet the need for income that is required to keep the doors open and the lights on in the company on a daily basis, so it’s good to be prepared for an emergency but much better to prevent it.