I have been so fortunate to have encountered a few supremely intelligent individuals lodged in the pinnacles of management who have, in all seriousness, recommended some very surgical reductions that would save the company bottom line.
Birthday Cakes
If you have more than 50 employees, there is a chance that your business may go overboard in purchasing 12 cakes a year, one for each month that employees share a birthday in the same month. Why can't these monumental sponges celebrate their private birthdays at home instead of taking up half an hour of productive office time to eat junk food? Will they not realize that they are hired to work? The company is not obligated to provide an enjoyable working environment! What is the world coming to? People actually enjoying each other's presence at work? The work place is not about having fun. Quit enjoying coming to work and do your job!
Diluting hand soap
The medical profession has been a fear monger and bane to struggling businesses that are trying to keep costs down, by spreading propaganda about needing to wash hands after using the bathroom. To prevent a small uprising from the ladies in administration, your company could reduce expenses significantly by gradually diluting the hand soap you place in the bathroom. Remember, every penny adds up over the years. Do not throw out the old hand soap gel dispenser. Instead, retain the bottle and fill it half way with regular hand soap gel, then add water to it. Over a spread of 6 months, your employees will get used to the runny hand soap. When they are conditioned, you can re-fill the empty hand soap bottle to the 1/4 level and add water to the rest of the bottle. In years to come, your employees will gradually stop using hand soap and eventually wash their hands with just water. We will discuss water rationing in a later segment.
Toilet paper
While we do not believe that the rain forest is of any significance to humanity, or of any value other than providing us with IKEA furniture, we do not wish our employees to jump on a pulp spending spree by going through rolls of toilet paper. Encourage your employees to use the bathroom at home by first suggesting that each employee furnish their own drawers with a personal roll of toilet paper from their home. This is where the medical science propaganda will come in handy. Tell your employees that touching the same roll of toilet paper in the office means they would come into contact with more germs from their colleagues. This way, they will not only be motivated to use their own personal roll, but eventually stop using the office toilet. You would kill two birds with one stone as there would be less flushes and your company would save $50 on 96 rolls.
Candy/Snacks
Providing snacks to your valued employees can be a very expensive habit. Not only would you be ruining their health/dental plan but your profit margin could be hemorrhaging severely from this detrimental but well meaning entitlement. Call your health and human services department in your state and ask for free posters that encourage good eating habits. Instruct your administration staff to plaster these public service announcements all over your kitchen walls to encourage them to stay away from candy and snacks. With pictures of diabetes and other related afflictions, your staff will gravitate away from these non nutritional expenses and you will eliminate this line item from your general ledger.
Stationery
When hiring new employees, include the following pre-requisites:
Employees must provide their own -
- Pen
- Writing paper
- Calculator
- Chair
- Phone
- Laptop
- Printer & printing paper
Not only would you be reducing the burden of your cost centers, each employee's expenditure would go to their personal itemized tax deductions as well as generating more sales for local stationery stores. Thankfully, your employees would most likely use standard deductions as these expenses would not be significant enough for them to itemize in their tax returns. Your state representative to congress would be grateful for your efforts in preventing the loss of revenue, which is crucial to providing congressmen & their families generous incomes & healthcare benefits.
Concluding thoughts
While this list is not exhaustive, you should not be limited to these brilliant schemes to increase your business profits. After all, you need to squeeze every penny out of your business so that you and your family can splurge on vacations overseas and indulge in luxury goods. Employees should be happy that they even have a job that you so compassionately provide. Lastly, you should continually remind your employees to be grateful and that they could be fired at any time depending on which side of the bed you roll out of in the morning. Employee loyalty is lost on this decadent generation!
