1. How involved should your employees be in making the decision? (Hint: Consider using the decision tree in Exhibit 14.14 to determine the appropriate level of employee participation in this decision.) New Offi ces Necessary?

Everyone says that when business is good, you’re supposed to be able to relax a little. Whoever said that never set foot in the offi ce of your magazine.86 When you launched the magazine, the staff consisted of you (editor and publisher), an advertising salesperson

(who also handled distribution), an art director, a page designer, and a production director. All writing was by freelancers. As circulation has grown, so has the number of pages in the magazine and the frequency with which you publish issues. That core of six people has quadrupled, causing the space all of you occupy to become cramped. At 6,000 square feet, the offi ce is comfortably full with 25 people. Your problem is that you have more work than your 25 employees can comfortably handle, and you need to hire about fi ve more people. Where will you put them?

The way you see it, you have a couple of options.

First, you could move. Pack everyone’s desk up, all the equipment, and fi nd a space that will accommodate a larger and growing workforce. Moving, though, would be costly. Companies typically charge upwards of $50 per hour per mover, plus you’d have to get insurance to cover the move. The Better Business Bureau received complaints about companies in over 1,000 industries;

the moving industry received over 5,000 complaints, putting them 11th on that list. Finding a reputable, high-quality moving company could take time away from magazine work. And managing the logistics could be a nightmare. You can’t just shut down, turn off the phones, and move in peace. You’d still have to conduct business, sell ads, edit copy, handle subscriptions, lay out pages, shoot photos, and do dozens of other day-to-day activities. Plus, the sheer volume of paper archives related to fi ve years of magazine publishing, not to mention all the technology hardware, would make packing and unpacking a big endeavor for each of your workers.