Cost Saving Ideas
KathyA
29 Posts
Does anybody have any ideas or experience with reducing overall organizational operating costs (such as renegotiating janitorial, security, landscaping contracts for price reductions, eliminating free bottled water and/or coffee, unnecessary newspaper/publication subscriptions, etc.)? Thank you.
Comments
"Sam"
In our office, we pay for the bottled water. We contract with a company to deliver the bottles every 2 weeks. The monthly cost for about 20 employees is 3 dollars. This is far less than hitting the vending machine!!! So we don't mind that the company does not pay for this.
Carefully review office supplies. Determine what is a business NEED and an employee WANT. If and employee would rather use the Bic FAT pen rather than the standard med. blue ink, then let her pay for it.
Ask for estimates for landscaping....and determine how much you really need. Maybe until things are better you can scale back the flowers and general planting....
If employee pay is an issue, do you have anyone up for early retirement? It might be worth looking into. You may even have some employees that would be willing to be part-time for a while....
good luck!
As far as office consumables, I would develop a "core list" of supplies and assign one person as the central point for all ordering. Begin by conducting an inventory of all supplies on hand and only order as needed. Office Depot, for example, set-up a website for us with our "core" items on it. They are, for the most part, heavily-discounted branded items and they are the only ones that my assistant can order under her login account. For specialty items, I can log into my account and authorize her to purchase by either item # or dollar figure above and beyond any pre-set spending limits I have assigned. It's a pretty neat set-up. Contact a rep at Office Depot and they can set you up at no cost.
I hope some of these ideas help.
Gene
Hope this helps you.
PORK
There is always room to trim.
Closely supervise employees toward the end of their shifts. Send employees home early when they aren't busy.
Make sure employees get a lunch break at every possible opportunity. Often, employees who are not closely supervised will work through lunch, claiming they didn't have time to go. It just takes a supervisor pushing them out the door, most of time. They often just want to earn extra $$$ by not taking a meal break. I've also met many lazy supervisors who let their employees skip a meal break because the supervisor just doesn't want to cover for them.
Schedule a 40 hour/week position for 37. Somehow the job still gets done, and potential for overtime is reduced if they happen to "get stuck" late a few times.
I like the team idea from another post. Get a copy of your year-to-date G/L and assign sections. Have each team review every vendor that's been paid during that time. Managers who review their own expenses can get pretty protective of what they spend, but when they review another department's expenses, they see lots of room to cut the fat.