Also, remaining employees may lose morale and motivation when job cuts become a reality in the organization. There are many alternative methods of reducing labor costs that management should investigate before deciding to layoff. Many employees will agree to incur salary and benefit reduction. They may also volunteer for shorter workweeks and unpaid vacations. Some upper management positions have accepted pay decreases and experienced temporary suspended executive bonuses.
Job sharing is another popular alternative especially in the service sector.
To avoid layoffs several employees volunteer to work part time filling the same position and creating more jobs. Hiring freezes are common and in many cases necessary during a recession because of the costs acquired by hiring new employees. Instead of hiring in one part of the company and laying off in another, better company ethics and a less expensive alternative would be to retrain devoted employees to work unfilled positions. When seeking possible alternatives to layoffs, employees have good ideas how to cut corners and save money. Initiating a roundtable to exchange ideas is very useful.