The economy has left many of us with fewer employees than we had a few years ago. Companies have trimmed staff down to only the essential employees who they believe are crucial to their business today. A common question is quickly surfacing: who do I hire back first? Sometimes I answer with maybe no one. Here’s why:

Companies have a tendency to rehire furloughed employees based on seniority and, in some cases, as with union agreements, they almost have to. I caution you and ask you to think first about the type of skills sets you will need three to five years from now and if the people you want to add back really have the skills and training necessary for the technology and projects you will be dealing with then. We are quickly shifting to a digital world; audio, video, security and everything else we do will become part of a network in some fashion.

Please know that I value the expertise of the true audio and video professional as well as the knowledge and training needed for fire, security, access control, CCTV and the other applications. Those experts are a must. Yet, I encourage you to blend into your mix of expertise the network-savvy IT professionals who can work together with those experts to develop customer-driven solutions that can work independent of the network, or be an application on the network. Think this through before you hire back based solely on emotion or sense of loyalty. CW