• Employers may find alternatives to downsizing that are better for the business and workers.

Alternatives to downsizing may offer better options to some employers. Employers could offer voluntary early retirement or job-sharing, or might reduce hours and implement furloughs.

Other alternatives to downsizing include:

• Business process re-engineering — Looking at long-term performance and what can be done to increase or add value.
• Downscaling — Reducing product lines to focus on core business.
• Retraining workers — Find ways to retrain or redirect workers to other priorities in the company that have a more positive effect on the revenue stream.
• Workweek adjustment/overtime reduction — Vary the number of hours employees work per week based on the workload, rather than reducing the workforce. When reducing the number of hours, check other company benefit plans to identify any impacts. For instance, a long-term reduction in hours may result in employees being considered part-time.
• Furloughs — Not quite a layoff, a furlough is usually a period of one or more weeks during which an employee is not permitted to work, with the understanding that the employee will return to full duties after a defined time period. Often, the employees can collect unemployment benefits during these weeks.
• Hiring freeze/reduction by attrition — Some organizations can accomplish the same goals of downsizing by freezing hiring and not filling any open positions. Cross training employees to do more than one job will allow for labor force flexibility.
• Negotiate wage and benefit concessions — The workforce may accept wage and benefit reductions as an alternative to layoffs. The downside of this option is that the most qualified employees may seek employment elsewhere.
• Reducing layers — Organizations may consider eliminating layers of management or operations before reductions in the blue-collar workforce.