If you haven’t heard this term yet, you will hear it this year.
This means that companies are looking at all their processes and assumptions to find ways to save money. In the past companies tried to do this with salaries, but there is only so far you can go with that. Now with record-low unemployment, companies are still having problems finding workers so the cost of salaries is rising.
This can be an opportunity for you. If you are creative you can find ways to save money in whatever you are good at. If you can save a company money, they often want to keep you around. For example, when companies that I worked for had tough financial times in the past I found ways to save money and wrote up pages of money-saving ideas. Many of those suggestions were used. It felt good helping to keep people with jobs by looking at ways to improve business efficiency.
One of the biggest things happening for IT work now is security and saving money. Most companies have been trying to automate for a long time, but finding the costs is sometimes a challenge. The skilled labor it takes to do automation can be difficult, and everything takes more time than it seems due to considering the political climate of work. I have seen that because of “culture” best practices aren’t done, and that has a real financial and security risk to everyone.
It is difficult to influence the culture of an organization but there are times that I have moved the needle on a company’s culture. Still, it was a great deal of work and put my job at risk. Challenging decision-makers is not always appreciated even when they say they want feedback and ideas. It is not the path 99% of people choose and I understand why. People would rather get paid and work in a toxic environment than do something about it. Everyone has to make their own decisions in life.
If you can find ways to be efficient, you will always have a job.