How to Work With Your Engineering Team During a Recession

The World Economic Forum organization predicts that the 2022 recession is coming. It associates future economic depression with the consequences of the COVID-19 fallout and the war Russia started against Ukraine. According to Bloomberg, the crisis of 2022 has already begun, and both small and medium businesses have already felt it. Nevertheless, preparing for the next economic crash is always a good idea.

When the economic downturn touches all levels of organizations, many engineering teams will find themselves under immense pressure to deliver results. To stay afloat, they must work together in coordination and efficiency. We have prepared some tips for you about working with your engineering team during the approach of the tough times.

Problems businesses are facing during a recession

Businesses experience many problems impacting engineering teams when economic growth stalls or reverses. The most common issues are:

Low demand for products and services.
Less money to invest in research and development.
Hiring freezes or layoffs.
Increased competition.
Lack of morale among employees.

Ultimately, small businesses find themselves one step closer to bankruptcy than their larger competitors. Money can`t be raised as quickly, and they have less cash on hand. This can make it challenging to pay engineers, which can lead to lower morale and even attrition. The first logical decision in such a case is to cut costs wherever possible.

How to cut costs without impacting the quality of your product

There are many ways to reduce your engineering costs without compromising the quality of the product. Here are a few ideas:

Outsource some of your work.
Hire freelance engineers.
Implement a hiring freeze.
Reduce hours or days worked.
Use open source software.
Replace expensive licenses with cheaper alternatives.
Consolidate servers and other infrastructure.

Turnover rate: what is it, and why track it

The turnover rate is one of the most important indicators of company health. The turnover rate can be expressed as a percentage or as a number. It is a ratio of the number of employees who have left the organization to the total number of employees. There are many reasons why people quit their jobs, but during a recession, the most common cause is that they have been laid off. Tracking the turnover rate can give you essential insights into how your company is doing. If the rate is high, it could be a sign that your company is struggling and employees are leaving, because they do not feel protected in their jobs. On the other hand, if the turnover rate is low, it could indicate that your company is doing well and that employees feel secure in their jobs.

How to understand if your turnover rate is high or low? You can use this Turnover Rate Calculator to compare it to other companies. Just enter your industry, company size, and the number of employees who have left in the past year. The app will tell you whether you have a high, low, or average turnover rate.

How to find the causes of high employee turnover

Track how satisfied employees are with the package of additional benefits (free food in the office, gym membership, etc.) and how motivated they are to achieve common goals. But how do you check both things? Two items can help you keep a finger on the pulse of the mood that prevails in the team: special software and surveys.

You’ll get honest feedback and improve transparency and collaboration with the following HR tools.

BambooHR: a cloud-based solution that offers features for small and medium businesses, including performance reviews, applicant tracking, and employee onboarding.
CultureAmp: this tool is mainly focused on employee engagement and feedback. It offers a survey builder, data analysis, and reporting features.
Small Improvements: another tool that helps with performance reviews and employee feedback. It also has a recognition feature that allows employees to give each other badges and rewards.

Periodic surveys are also a great method to collect feedback from your engineers and gauge their engagement levels. A few examples of survey questions:

Are you satisfied with the software you use?
Do you think your skills are being utilized to their full potential?
Do you feel like there is an opportunity for you to learn and grow in our organization?
Do you feel supported by your manager/team lead?
Do you feel like your work is valuable to the company?
What can we do to make your professional life more enjoyable/fulfilling?
What motivates you to do your best work?
Is there anything preventing you from being more productive at work?

By asking these questions, you’ll understand a team’s level of engagement and what you can accomplish to improve their satisfaction levels.

Satisfied employees have a direct impact on a company’s revenues. In the conditions of the great financial crisis, keep this connection in mind. An AON Hewitt survey found that a 5% increase in engagement has led to a 3% increase in revenue.

What goals to set during an economic recession?

It should be simple, clear, and achievable. First, answer to yourself: what exactly should the team do to help the company survive and even thrive during a recession?

For example, in the case of a product company, your engineering team‘s goals may be to reduce the time-to-market of new features or products or to increase the efficiency of the working process.

For a service company, the goal of your engineers may be to increase the quality of service while reducing the time spent on each task.

In any case, the goals must be specific and measurable so that you can track and assess the results achieved.

10 tips to keep your engineering team highly productive during a downturn

Before the economic recession hits, it’s essential to have a plan in place for how you will manage your engineering team. We have 10 tips from our project managers and lead engineers to help you weather the storm:

1. Communicate openly and frequently

96% of businesses support the idea that organizational communication significantly impacts profits. Recessions can be stressful, so keeping communication lines open between team members is essential. But it is necessary to follow the golden mean because employees write work emails and talk in meetings for about 20 hours a week (half of a 40-hour work week). You don’t want to burden them with even more mandatory correspondence or calls. Implement special software for work and non-work communication (like Slack) to solve problems faster.

Encourage everyone to share their concerns and ideas openly to identify potential areas for improvement. But don’t make it an obligation.

2. Focus on the essentials

Prioritize projects. During a recession, your engineering team must not get sidetracked; continue to work towards the company’s goals, and focus on the essential tasks that need to be completed. McKinsey’s research shows that prioritizing leads to improved performance and makes the company 40% more successful than most competitors.

Remind your team regularly about the company’s mission and values to help them stay motivated and inspired even during challenging times.

Read also: 5 top CI/CD best practices for DevOps

3. Confirm the team has the right tools and resources

Keep the team up-to-date on industry trends. This will help them identify potential areas of improvement and ensure they are always working on the latest technologies. This includes both hardware and software resources. Among them are such tools:

GitHub. Highly popular code repositories. GitHub provides an overview of the code changes made by each team member. This makes it easy to track the progress of a project and identify potential bottlenecks. If you want to improve transparency and collaboration, give your developers access to the company’s GitHub repository.
Bitbucket. An Atlassian’s web-based version control repository hosting service is used for source code and development projects that use the Mercurial or Git revision control systems. It will help your engineers to work productively on the code, track changes, and resolve conflicts.
Slack. A messenger that helps reduce email traffic and makes it easy to have quick conversations. Slack integrates with many popular tools, such as GitHub, so you can get notifications about code changes and pull requests right in the chat.
Jira. Another Atlassian tool allows you to track the progress of each task and identify potential risks. Jira can help you prioritize tasks and allocate resources more efficiently in a recession. Engineering teams often use Jira to manage the development process and ensure timely delivery of results.

4. Be flexible

Remember that during a recession, things can change quickly and unexpectedly. Be willing to adjust plans if needed. What does it mean: if the company needs to lay off some employees, it will certainly affect the engineering team‘s workload. In this case, you must be ready to redistribute the work among the remaining team members.

5. Encourage cost-saving initiatives within the engineering team

Team members should look for ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency while achieving essential goals and KPIs (e.g. DevOps metrics). Make sure that team members are aware of the company’s budget constraints.

6. Provide a healthy work-life balance

During a downturn, employees may be under increased pressure to work longer hours, but this can lead to a burnout and decreased productivity in the long run. Encourage your team to take breaks, use their vacation days, and disconnect from work.

Working from home sometimes helps to have a healthier work-life balance. OwlLab’s report shows that 23% of employees would instead agree to a 10% cut in salary in exchange for the opportunity to work from home permanently. Make the choice optional, because Employment Hero’s remote working survey shows that 30% of employees find it difficult to separate home and work affairs independently, and the remote only exacerbates the problem.

7. Encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking

During a downturn, businesses must find new ways to cut costs and increase efficiency. By encouraging your team to develop creative solutions, you will help them stay engaged and motivated.

8. Keep up (or set up) workplace traditions

It is essential to keep up morale in the team during tough times. If your company has traditions, such as Friday night drinks or a monthly team lunch, keep them up. If not, now is a great time to start some! Some rituals help to build a strong team culture and foster a sense of belonging.

9. Invest in wellness programs

How it will help: you should help your team members stay healthy and productive. To prevent anxiety and burnout, try to invest in wellness programs that help employees manage stress. These can include yoga classes, massages, and mental health days.

10. Be sure to recognize and reward employees

Recognizing and rewarding employees is a great way to show them that their hard work is appreciated. What does it mean: make sure to give employees feedback regularly. It is even more important to show your team that you value their contributions during a recession. In addition, consider giving bonuses or other rewards for a well-done job.

Summary

Recessions can be challenging for businesses, but by following these tips, you can help your engineering team weather the storm. Don’t forget to show your team some love during these tough times! Being flexible, encouraging creativity, and investing in wellness programs will help your team stay productive and engaged.

An economic downturn is not the best time to hire new talents for your engineering team. If you need to, consider our specialists on a team extension model to help with the workload until the situation improves. Count on us! We, at Crunch, have been through some recessions, and we are confident we can help your business tide over this difficult period.

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