Firms develop plans if hiring freezes begin

Signs of a weaker economy have led some small business owners to cut back or freeze hiring. Many were already working with lean staffs, remembering the lessons of the Great Recession, when companies were forced to lay employees off.

Some advice from owners on coping with a hiring freeze — even before it happens:

■ Be ready to pivot, even if business has been strong. Samantha Martin does most of the annual hiring for her public relations firm in the first quarter. But not this year — clients worried about a slowing economy are cutting their budgets, and Martin has in turn scaled back her own plans.

“Our clients are having trouble getting funding and therefore public relations and marketing are the first to get cut,” says Martin, owner of New Yorkbased Media Maison.

If Martin’s firm has more work than her current staff can handle, she’ll hire freelancers who work by the hour.

Hiring on a project-by-project basis removes the potential of having to lay anyone off.

■ Invest in your current staffers and your company. Dana Leavy-Detrick decided against expanding her staff not because of economic reasons, but because she struggled to find talented staffers. So she began training her current employees to improve and develop their skills. She also looked at how her company was being run to streamline it “so we could take on more business without hiring additional help. That so far has been the most successful strategy for us,” says Leavy-Detrick, owner of Brooklyn Resume Studio, a career consulting agency in New York.

■ Structure your company so you can react quickly, even years from now. After Greg Henson was force to lay off half his staff in the Great Recession, he structured his technology consulting business. Now approximately 50% of his workers are freelancers.

He has also outsourced some of The Henson Group’s work. But be aware that this takes time: Henson estimates he needed between three and four years to restructure the New York-based company.