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Current Issue

Posted 01.01.2009

Business survival 101

Page 2

Employment
Hadzi, from CIBER, says the new building is the least of his worries. "I worry about our people," he says. "I am trying to hold onto all of them." He says the company might cut back on other expenses such as new furniture.

Ray Gonzales, president and CEO of the Brighton Economic Development Corp., says he’s talking to an engineering firm whose executives are considering foregoing bonuses and taking $10,000 pay cuts instead of laying off workers. "My response was, ‘Great, we need more companies like you.’"

Some companies laid off workers and still need to reduce costs. Homebuilder McStain Neighborhoods has cut its staff from 115 workers to 20 over the past two years. The Louisville-based company closed its office, and staffers work from home.

"It doesn’t matter to a customer who is buying a leading-edge green house what our office looks like," says Tom Hoyt, founder and president. "We have a project in mothballs in Longmont. When we start that back up, we will build some kind of team-meeting office as part of our sales facility up there."

Renewable energy companies are hiring people.

Vestas, a Danish wind turbine manufacturer, has conducted job fairs in Brighton and plans to hire about 1,400 people for new blade and nacelle facilities there. Germany-based Siemens Energy built a wind turbine research and development center in Boulder.

Andy Paliszewski, director of the Boulder office, says the company plans to hire about 50 people. "We’re hiring one person a month," he says. "We are being inundated with resumes."

Decreasing employee turnover is another way to cut costs. Karen Policastro, regional vice president of Robert Half International, says some companies are making counteroffers to top employees who turn in their resignations.

"Companies are still focused on keeping their best employees onboard," she says. The staffing company encourages employers to try low-cost retention strategies, such as offering movie tickets to reward accomplishments.

Government contractor SGIS plans to hire about 100 people in 2009 to work at Schriever Air Force Base near Colorado Springs. Executive Vice President Linda Harris says the company is advertising in the Schriever and Peterson Air Force Base newspapers, as well as on Craigslist, Facebook, MySpace and Friendster. There will be job fairs, too. "It will be a mix of near entry level with two years experience, up to retired military with 20 or 30 years experience," she says.

Some see hiring opportunities when competitors close. "As furniture stores like Levitz, Weberg, Rhodes and Homestead House went out of business, better salespeople and better managers became available," says Jake Jabs, president and CEO of American Furniture Warehouse, which has nine showrooms in Colorado.