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What were, for you, the major
lessons from the events of 2009? How did these developments
impact your organisation, and you personally?
By Joshua Yim, CEO ACHIEVE Group
Having weathered two recessions since the Asian Financial
Crisis 12 years ago, I am very grateful for the ACHIEVE
Group to have broken even in this financial year of 2009
during this past recession, especially given that employment
services such as ours are extremely susceptible to the ups
and downs of the economy. Lessons learnt from the previous
recessions enabled us to implement many pragmatic strategies
that allowed us to sail through the recent difficulties.
These strategies included increased internal communications
to get buy-in from staff regarding the cost-cutting measures,
a merit-based salary adjustment for all the sales staff
and management executives, launching new products such as
outplacement services, and increasing our focus on contractual
hiring for our clients. In fact, our investments in improving
our internal infrastructure over the past 12 months paid
off when I received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2009,
and the company recently receiving the ISO: 9001 accreditation.
Indeed, these are validations of the strength of the company
and its leadership, and the resilience of our people throughout
this trial. The lessons gleaned during this tough experience
is that there is always room to be better prepared. Should
there be a next recession, we would be better prepared by
offering a wider product base that includes more recession-proof
services such as temporary hire and interim executive leasing.
[Source: The Business Times]
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