Has staffing in your department/division been cut in recent years? (employees, 2014)

[pretty but odd]

Four years ago we had six employees in the Office Operations Division at my company. Effective next month only two of us will be left. The workload has stayed the same but in July two people will be doing the work that six people used to do. I am told that staffing has been dropped at many companies where a small staff is doing the same amount of work that a large team used to do.

(The only reason there is low unemployment now is there are more companies-- but staffing is down per company.)

[tnff]

Staffing did drop over the previous 8 years, but for the last couple we have been hiring, or trying to. We actually do have more people now than 2014, but still well below the number we need to do all the work we have. The unfortunate part is no one in our management chain above me has actually done any of the work we do, so they have completely unrealistic ideas of how much labor and how long it takes to do certain things. And at the same time they are adding more and more managerial BS approvals and paperwork that just slow things down while giving them the illusion of being in charge. Decisions that I could make at my level in 2010 are now made two levels above me, and require multiple review meetings with multiple staff offices first.

[Hemlock140]

We had about 30 layoffs and mandatory furloughs in 2008-09, but since then have caught back up and then some. There have been many new positions approved in the last 4-5 years. Recently HR has been swamped with replacements for retirees and those being poached by Amazon and others making offers we can’t match.

[DorianRo]

We had a department of 4 at one point. Im the only left now. They centralized all admin positions so I have an entire office to huge office to myself and hardly ever see a soul around. Its been like this for 3 years. Everyone else got fed up and left and managed to find another job or they just laid them off. Im a "team lead" in title with no team to lead. Naturally the company is in the toilet and losing millions of dollar accounts. We have had 4-5 CEOs in 4 years. . Whoda thunk it.

Companies are trying to skate by on as little manpower as possible most places and its costing them their rear in the long runs. If you want an efficient, properly ran company, you need to be staffed to do these things

This will be the third company Ive joined that was essentially ran into the ground (Though at one point is a great company when I joined 6-7 years ago) . So Im no rush to go someplace else. Every company Ive worked for, its been all the same nonsense. Mismanagement eventually leading to the place's downfall. From my experience, its all been the same BS. Leave one crappy company, find another one. No rush to join a FOURTH in a 12-13 year span

Finding a well ran, quality company is the equivalent of winning the mega-million today

I would say move on from your situation, but the REALITY is, chances are you'll just end up in another hole with limited staff, an exhausted and overworked workforce and poor employee/customer retention rates. . Theres no escaping mismanaged companies who spend their entire days making horrid business decisions that most grade school kids wouldn't make.

Most higher ups don't go whats going on below them or if the companies get ran off a cliff. They will sell their stocks before the drop and extort millions in salaries and undeserving bonuses before the place crashes and burns. Those jobs are in NO WAY tied to performance.


Go the public sector/Federal route would be my advice.

[DonaldJTrump]

yes, positions get moved overseas.

people quit or laid off, but nobody is hired to replace them

[Serious Conversation]

Yes - large employer, large department. There was a 20% RIF since then. A lot of SMEs were lost. They've tied to backfill with contractors without much luck.

[Rabrrita]

Originally Posted by pretty but odd

Four years ago we had six employees in the Office Operations Division at my company. Effective next month only two of us will be left. The workload has stayed the same but in July two people will be doing the work that six people used to do. I am told that staffing has been dropped at many companies where a small staff is doing the same amount of work that a large team used to do.

(The only reason there is low unemployment now is there are more companies-- but staffing is down per company.)

As a business owner, when I hear things like "there was a reduction from 6 to 2 with the workload staying the same", I'm always curious if technological improvements mean the 2 can do the work of 6 without any additional work on those remaining.

[bUU]

Originally Posted by pretty but odd

Four years ago we had six employees in the Office Operations Division at my company. Effective next month only two of us will be left. The workload has stayed the same but in July two people will be doing the work that six people used to do. I am told that staffing has been dropped at many companies where a small staff is doing the same amount of work that a large team used to do.

I've been at this job 15 months and during that time we've gone from 30 to 26. The excuse given for one of them is that that allowed the director to hire 4 in India instead. I'm doing my work and the work of one of those laid off, now. The work of the other three laid off was distributed between the workers hired in India.

Originally Posted by pretty but odd

(The only reason there is low unemployment now is there are more companies-- but staffing is down per company.)

The relevant metric that explains the situation is the "Labor Force Participation Rate". During the Clinton administration, over 67% of those eligible to work were employed. Since then, businesses have been working to change the structure of work, itself, reducing the number of mission-critical and/or highly technical (and therefore well-paying) jobs in favor of more menial jobs, many of which pay less than a living wage. The participation rate is now 63%, representing roughly 10 million people out of work who are not factored into the unemployment rate.

Originally Posted by Rabrrita

As a business owner, when I hear things like "there was a reduction from 6 to 2 with the workload staying the same", I'm always curious if technological improvements mean the 2 can do the work of 6 without any additional work on those remaining.

That was the case through the Clinton administration, but by the middle of GW Bush administration, globalization started becoming a more significant factor. As I indicated above, one of my co-workers was recently let go as part of a reduction in force but what was really going on under the covers was a shifting of mission-critical and/or highly technical work from workers in the United States to workers in India.

[RogueMom]

Originally Posted by tnff

The unfortunate part is no one in our management chain above me has actually done any of the work we do, so they have completely unrealistic ideas of how much labor and how long it takes to do certain things. And at the same time they are adding more and more managerial BS approvals and paperwork that just slow things down while giving them the illusion of being in charge.

This is true at so many places of business these days.

[RogueMom]

I've been working for over 4 decades, and under staffing is the biggest change I've seen over the last two. Meanwhile, there are often too many "Chiefs" trying to micro-manage the too-few "Indians", continually rolling out new initiatives and procedures down the pipeline, often without much real merit, in order to justify their jobs.

I'm planning to just stay at my current company no matter how bad it gets on into retirement. It's better than the last one I worked for, and I realize that, the grass is probably not going to be greener somewhere else.