Currently I am reading book named "Less is More", and following is something I really liked about the productive comapnies, I will put more from this book

• Revenue Per Employee - This measueres - arrived at by divifing total sales by the number of employees- speaks volumes about a company's ability to efficiently market and sell its goods.
  Some companies use ploy to inflate their sales per employee numbers. They fire employees and rehire them or others as a contracted workforce. It looks good on paper but it didn't get past us. We conunted the workforce numbers of all the companies we eventually profiled to make certain they were accurate and we tallied part-time employees and proportionately conunted them as full-time equivalents.
• Return on Equity and Return on Assets - The percentage return on a company's net worth for a given period tells shareholders how effectively capital is being employed. E.g. it a company's net work ( asset less liabilities) is $5 million and they earn $1 million a year, their annual return on equity is 20 percent. During our research, we analyzed many companies that earned substantial profits and provided competitive returns on their stockholders' equity. But some of the returns on equity we unearthed were mammoth by comparison to industry or business averages, indicating that these companies are far superior to their rivals in either their efficiencies or their productivity. Similarly we reviewed a company's return on assets and only the top performers made our final list.
• Operating Income Per Employee - When comparing comapnies, net profit numbers can be misleading: they're affected by differing national tax rates and othen include a myriad of one-time charges or credits that may not be a reflection of actual income from operations. So we decided instead to use income from oprtations divided by the number of full-time, or full-time equivalent, employees, which seems a much better indication of a company's productivity. This criteria gives an edge to companies that pay their workers poorly, are notoriously cheap or beat up their suppliers on a regular basis. While this books is about doing more with less and not about being nice or winning popularity contests, we also believe the marketplace is ultimately fair, rewards value and punished bad operators. We required our chosen companies to have proven themselves by having been in business for ten years or more, which should mean we got rid of the chiselers.

• Organization lose valuable knowledge when institutional memory is not transferred to others. When employees leave, especially as a result of layoff, the departing employees may not pass along the institutional memory they hold. Daniel W. Rasmus, vice president of Giga Information group, has written, "As a knowledge management practitioner, when I look at lay offs, I see executive taking the easy way to cut cost - or give then impression that they're doing so- with little regard for the imact of workforce reduction on the long-term viability of the oragnization, let along its people. And savings may not result. After all, it takes several thousand dollars to coach an employee to thrive in a postion, and that investment is lost when the emplloyee leaves. Then there is the issue of losing members who are vital in terms of their knowledge about their work and their connections to content, processes, and people. suerly there is a cost in this loss."
• The damage to workers includes loss of moral, anixiety, presimism and a "save-my-own-butt" attitude- a soege mentality that isn't in the best interests of the company. Dr. Trevino points out that there;s plemty of evidence backing this up. "We know that eveyone within an oraganization pays close attntion to layoff because they know it's often not a single occurence . Layoff happen in stages. Instrad of working, employees look for clues as to when it might happen to them and discuss among themselves how they'll be trated.
• It's more expesive to lay off workers(legal, administrative and financial packages out the dorr) and then rehire (recruiting and training expense) than it is to shorten the workweek and temporarily reduce pay. Joutnalist Victor Infante, whos has extensively covered layoffs, sums up a secret that productive companies know. "Companies downsize to cut costs, but then are quickly forced to bring new people in because surviving employees leave for what they perceive to be more stable environments. This turnover starves production and lowers work quality." And he adds a thought that represents another way of looking at the cost issue: "Since the cost of a single new hire is generally equivalent to one year's salary, any savings from layoffs are negated." Dr, Trevino agrees. "Although layoffs have been touted as good management, they actually do not have a postivie impact on the bottom line."
• While layoffs may lead to superficial short-term effeciencies, they don't produce or sustain productivity. Consultant Darrell Rigby has written, "[Companies] understand that although employee layoffs will reduce costs in the short term, the combination of severance expenses,loss of knowledge and trust, and subsequent hiring, training, and retention costs can quickly overwhenlm expected savings" (From "Moving Upwards in Downturn," Harward Business Review, June 2001)
  

This is one of the 1st book on finance I read...
Though some people find this book not that good. I have read this book and found it much more interesting... This is a very good book for people who are on employee side and really want to change there thinking about money and the way it grows....
Everyone needs money... "Some people play for not to LOSE and SOME PEOPLE PLAY TO WIN"...
Idea is very simple, your money management depends on the way you think about money....

For all those who are really interested to KICK start their thinking about the changing economy and about the money, and our emotions about money and security should go for this book...
And then the second book by same author "Cash Flow Quadrants..."

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