[The Jolt] Don’t fire, put SC staff to good use

Singapore - The cost of re-hiring after you've fired talent in your supply chain could be even more costly, concurs a panel of supply chain executives at a recent conference. Try putting excess staff in work groups or communicating their value in order to retain them, the experts say.

Retaining talent in the supply chain has been identified as one of the major challenges chief supply chain officers are facing, says a recent IBM study. Especially in today's economy where companies are taking the axe to staff numbers, making sure good talent stays within the organisation is all the more important.

At a Think Solutions Series organised by The Logistics Institute - Asia Pacific, Donato Coporale, director of supply chain design and innovation, Asia Pacific UTi Worldwide expressed his opinion that, "the cost of laying off staff is significant but not as much a the information they take with them".  

He further cites a study from Standard & Poor's top 500 companies that found that companies that laid staff off as a result of a normal business process like M&A, generally see business and stock prices accelerate when there is a pickup in the market. On the flipside, businesses that cut staff strength during a downturn will find themselves spending more re-hiring lost talent when the market picks up again.

Professor Stephan M Wagner, professor and chair of Logistics Management, department of management, technology and economics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich says to make sure supply chain talent remains within your organisation, it is important to communicate their value to them.

Yeonho Yoo, partner of growth markets unit, supply chain management at IBM agrees, citing a previous IBM study which found that instead of compensation, supply chain personnel would rather have visibility with their bosses, a clear career track and learning opportunities.

Coporale suggests that chief supply chain officers with excess personnel on their hands during a downtime could set up work groups based on specific competencies. These groups can then educate other work groups from other departments on their roles, exchange ideas and come up with better ways of running the business.