Connections
Four Alternatives to Layoffs in Your Print Shop
I try to stay optimistic about the economy, seeking out the positive stories like new businesses and growth opportunities, but sometimes the reality is that, yes, small businesses can be hit hard.
Small printers may be looking around their print shop and wondering how they’re going to afford things like lease payments and payroll with ever-dwindling cash reserves. The easy answer might be layoffs, but there are alternatives. If all you need to stay in the black is a little extra cash flow, full scale layoffs may not only be extreme, they could end up pushing you further down. If you can, consider one of the following:
Eliminate Overtime
If you can’t afford to pay someone’s regular salary, what makes you think you can afford to pay someone time-and-a-half? Eliminate overtime at your print shop now by releasing a clear statement that says no overtime will be approved until further notice. Alternatively, you could draft a new policy offering employees flex time in lieu if overtime is worked (remember to set limits).
If an existing overtime policy is in place, you may need to get employees to sign off on a new policy. Check with HR, your lawyer, or an HR adviser before you make sweeping changes to existing employee contracts.
Limit Travel and Expenses
It’s true that you need to spend money to make money, but sometimes you need to save money to survive. If things are feeling tight, it may be time to cut your small business staff’s travel and expense budgets, especially if it means saving someone’s job.
Today, video conferencing, instant file delivery and quick communication make face-to-face meetings seem like a luxury. Yes, you can often score more points with a person-to-person sales call, but it may be time to start looking for clients locally.
Reduce Total Hours
Whether voluntary or not, hour reductions can be a way to save jobs while reducing pay. Some employees may welcome the opportunity to work less, but have more flexible hours, while others may resist the idea.
Remember though, reducing hours may reduce your hourly payroll, but it may not have a huge impact on your health insurance costs, unemployment costs or worker’s compensation insurance premiums unless you’re dealing with already part-time print shop employees. Take this into consideration when weighing the pros and cons of hour reductions.
Pay Freezes
Employees aren’t going to like a year without pay raises or bonuses, but they’ll accept it if the alternative is potential job loss. Explain to your staff clearly why you’re implementing a temporary pay freeze and what it means for them. Done right, this move should be accepted with understanding rather than backlash.
What about you? What are you doing at your small business or print job to whether this economy without cutting jobs?
Photo: ChurchHatesTucker
Higher Costs Reducing Enthusiasm for Green Printing
In today’s economy, it makes sense to work with the least expensive materials. But as the push for environmentally-friendly manufacturing and printing increases. it also makes sense to work with green materials.
The term “green” is widely used to describe any material designed and constructed with minimal negative impact to the environment and with an emphasis on conservation of resources, energy efficiency and healthier.
Green printing techniques have been around for many years, but have only begun to really become mainstream recently. Some of the main components of green printing include using recycled paper, recycling any paper waste produced while printing, switching to vegetable based inks that have low volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and using new technologies such as digital printers.
But with all the attention turning to “going green” in every day items, one thing that prohibits many from switching to green totally is the costs. It isn’t cheap and it doesn’t figure to get any cheaper in today’s recession.
According to a March 17 Graphic Arts Online article, printers are intensifying their
green efforts, but economic pressures are curbing customer zeal for paying the up-charge for sustainable printing. Pricing is the issue and as a result, there’s been a decrease in the use of green printing.
Despite this, it’s still important for printing companies to switch to new eco-friendly printing technologies. This benefits everyone, especially future generations, but the important thing is that ultimately the price will go down. New technology, whether it’s printers, computers, DVD players or other mechanical devices, are all expensive at first, but as demand goes up and competition increases, prices will ultimately come down.
The impact will be huge. New digital printing equipment combined with soy-based inks and recycled paper can make a different for the environment. Petroleum products are being eliminated from this process, helping eliminate any harmful emissions. This includes VOCs that can cause serious problems when inhaled by humans as well as significant damage to the ozone.
Recycling is also a huge factor when it comes to green printing as it really help save trees from being cut down. A major concern with using recycled paper is the quality of the paper. As it turns out, there is no longer a quality difference in normal paper as compared to recycled.
Many companies that have started to use these environmentally-friendly printing techniques without sacrificing quality or raising there prices.
One company, PS Print in Oakland, Calif., has provided green printing with affordable prices for years. They use recycled paper on many of their products, but they also recycle any paper waste that is made during the printing process. PS Print also makes heavy use of soy-based inks on all of their printing products. They also have printing locations on the East Coast, which reduces shipping costs for the company, thus reducing costs and carbon emissions.
So while the concern that green prices are going higher, PS Print and other companies are showing that it’s possible to stay green and without going in the red.