Weathering the storm? Or riding the winds?

As recession hits and deepens, there will clearly be increasing pressure on organisations providing public services. This pressure may well be felt most acutely by those organisations providing services to people at the edges of society, often in the greatest need of support. In many cases, these may be voluntary sector or charities.

Much of the advice that might be offered at this time is probably rather obvious. There are no magic spells to ward off the storm. On the whole, you will survive, or even thrive, in a recession for much the same reasons as in a positive economic cycle. You need to be:

• In good overall financial health, not carrying any injuries;
• Focused, with a good understanding of what makes your business tick;
• Measuring the right things and not hiding from low performance;
• Respectful of knowledge and learning, never frightened to ask questions and to challenge;
• Close to your 'customer', listening to their needs and clearly communicating your value to them.
  

The organisations that fare best in a recession are almost certainly those that go into it from a position of strength. They are likely to have limited debt, strong assets and a good cash position.

You can strengthen your position by minimising waste. This might mean reducing your costs wherever possible. Only, it is important to make sure they are the right costs. Some of this might be achieved by outsourcing or, perhaps, shared resourcing - could you, for example, partner with another similar organisation and share back-office functions.

Now, more than at any time, you must be focused. Be clear on the purpose of your business. Don't allow mission drift. What does success look like? What is 'performance'? Understand the key business drivers - define them and report against them, including their real financial value/impact.

The structure of your organisation and all your internal processes should be geared to optimising those drivers. For example, do you have a clear, relevant reporting process?

Being a 'learning organisation' is a tired cliché. However, it is a vital concept. The learning organisation never thinks that they have all the answers. They have a constant thirst for knowledge. This manifests itself in strong reporting processes and very active performance management, as well as in: team meetings that look more like in-service training than administrative briefings; involvement in research and interest in the political/strategic landscape; an 'open door policy' in operations, with observations of interactions with service users, for example, or best practice sharing days between offices, and; lots of listening, gathering and responding to feedback from service users and staff and other stakeholders.

If you understand the purpose of your business, does the person who pays for it? Does your funder understand the benefits you deliver? It is your responsibility to provide them with a motivation to support you. You need to be clear on your 'value proposition' and then keep communicating this loud and clear, over and over again. Your message is most likely to get across if you combine 'hard' data on your professional performance with 'soft' stories which illustrate your impact.

As far as possible, view your customer/funder as your partner. As far as possible, encourage them to see your relationship in the same way. The more you demonstrate transparency and try to keep them informed, the closer they will feel. They are more likely to help you when things are rocky, perhaps even co-developing solutions, if they feel fully involved.

Finally, you mustn't be frightened of change!!!! The context within which you operate will be changing dramatically over the coming months and years. It is very unlikely that your business will be able to stand still. The most successful organisations possibly anticipate some of that and are already adapted before the environment requires it. But above all else, it is their ability to adapt that marks them as successful. This ability comes from: their understanding of their business and its drivers; their transparent reporting of performance against those drivers, and; their constant evaluation and learning, searching for something new. They also generally enjoy themselves in the process, cheering themselves on, with a lot of laughter in their offices! When they do all this with open doors, they find people actually want to partner and grow with them.

Richard Johnson
Managing Director
Welfare to Work, Serco
richard.johnson@serco.com

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