During a meeting a client was sharing their spouse’s situation.
Their company had been small for a long time and make really good money. Then the decision was made to go bigger. They made the infrastructure changes and bulked up the support staff in preparation of the big push to grow.
They implemented all of their growth plans and it worked. But it did not work to the level they had planned on, the growth was there but it fell short of expectations.
A couple of years later and the growth still has not hit the optimal levels. The owner is understandably frustrated, but has been lashing out at the employees.
The lack of growth is not the employees fault, unless they are from the sales and marketing department; which consists of the owner and one other employee. They are responsible for sales growth.
It sounds to me like they implemented their structure plan incorrectly. They should have had it broken down into sections. Make these changes at this sales level, once achieved implement these changes at this level. This keeps costs in line with real growth expectations.
Because a major retrenching creates morale issues and wastes money and resources, grow smartly with a plan.