Pause before reacting

Recent budget announcements to reduce the Employer NIC threshold, increase the percentage rate, and raise the minimum wage, puts further pressure on businesses already challenged by inflated cost of sales.

In our experience, companies often react to these economic headwinds by reducing central headcount. This approach is a short-sighted solution to reducing budgets by cutting salaries and associated people costs.

If the top line is also underperforming (ironically, due to price rises implemented to counter inflation), a sense of urgency quickly arises that drives hasty and reactive activity. It can feel like just throws everything at the wall to see what sticks, without fully recognising the impact on those most affected.

Operations teams become overwhelmed with unmanageable workloads and poorly designed changes, while central teams face burnout and frustration from unclear priorities.

"Haste" starts to replace "pace", quickly unravelling productivity and the “one team” culture required to move in the same direction..

Without effective coordination of activities, governance of standards, and clear communication between functions, the result can be chaos. Accountability for these tasks must sit with unbiased operational expertise, ensuring all activity is fit for purpose and changes will land as required.

In today’s climate, the need for businesses to operate efficiently while delivering outstanding products and services is more critical than ever. The fast pace of competitive activity and rising consumer expectations highlight the necessity for codified best practices, applied effectively with a holistic view of the business to ensure consistency and quality is achieved.

Are there other solutions available to be leaner and move faster?

Is the time being taken to truly understand what is currently failing?

Do you need to add more activity, or can you reprioritise and double down on what really matters?

What really drives productivity for the long term?

We would urge any organisation considering cost cutting exercises for 2025 to just pause.. and review.

Ensuring activity is adding value, prioritised accordingly and supported by the required resource to effectively implement will deliver efficiencies without sacrificing quality, or impacting long term plans.

Trice Ltd excels at identifying efficiency and profitable growth opportunities, whilst recognising the importance of people at the centre of these changes.

We believe businesses grow from the ground up.

We think the most effective way to deliver any business strategy is to make the right changes to its everyday workings, operations, processes, and practices.

Finding, enabling, and implementing these changes is what we do.

We don’t just deliver short term solutions, but enable in-house teams, with sustainable results