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Moneypenny ‘Ireland has a great tradition of resilience –
Mrs
has little time for all the negativity and blame that goes on during times like these. “People need to stand back and say: ‘Look, this is good for the country as a whole’.” The same goes for business, she says. “Being a business manager – and indeed a politician – is not a popularity contest. The problem with politicians of course is that they do ultimately have to be popular with people, oth- erwise they don’t get elected, and I think quite often that’s why you don’t get enough tough decisions taken,” she says. “Business managers have their shareholders to answer
to – although I’m in the fortunate position of being my own shareholder! The very difficult decisions I had to make in my business were going to make me unpopular, but they weren’t going to get me voted out of my job.” While her tone is light, Mrs Moneypenny has some
serious advice from her own experience of dealing with the recession and her West End business. “I think the most important lesson I learnt and conveyed to my staff was that – it’s a bit of cliché I know – we’re all in this together. If you get people to recognise that what you are doing is safeguarding their long-term future, then I think that they will come with you. My staff did all come with me, and they all took pay cuts.”
Bringing on the young However, she points to an interesting philosophy that has worked well for her. “I ring-fenced everybody earn- ing less than £30,000 and I did that because I think that all too often it’s last in, first out. The first thing I said when I stood up and spoke to everybody, was, ‘Nobody under £30,000 will be either losing their job or losing any of their salary’. “I feel that more senior people have had time over the
years to make arrangements, and if they haven’t made suitable financial provision well it’s not my fault! Whereas the youngsters, I think if you start blowing them up you are imploding their hopes and dreams. You’re probably buying yourself a massive amount of commitment and loyalty by ring-fencing those staff.” She has just one regret from that time. For about a
year, she stopped taking on new and young people. “That was the one thing I bitterly regretted,” she admits. “I
know we all went hard on the cost-cutting and spending thing, but I got around a lot of other things in imagina- tive ways – I should have done the same when it came to recruiting.” She cautions too against cutting back on marketing. “I
think cutting back on hiring young people and on mar- keting are two things that you shouldn’t do. I cut back on one and I regret that, but I didn’t cut back on the other. I simply found imaginative, cost-effective ways around it.” And her advice for business leaders here in Ireland
coping during the recession? “Well as I say, don’t stop marketing, and keep hiring,” she responds. “I would hire young people on a lot less money. In the UK I can now hire young people out of university on £15,000 a year. Now that’s almost not a living wage but it’s a job, and if you live at home with mum and dad, it’s a doable thing, and it gives you a start in your career. “So, I would say try and create more jobs and spend
more time at the bottom of the company – you will benefit enormously from that.” And she is optimistic about Ireland getting through its
current travails. “Ireland has a great tradition of resilience – much greater than England. It’s dealt with far worse catastrophes than this in the last couple of hundred years and it will deal with this.” Mrs Moneypenny believes it may be time to rethink
everything. “The reality is you will have to raise taxes and cut spending. The economists will say that the way to close the gap is that wages have to come down, so you’ve got to think there are no sacred cows when you’re looking at your business or your family and what you’re going to do to survive. “Instead of thinking, ‘I can’t possibly move my chil-
dren out of that school’ or ‘I can’t possibly not have a holiday’ or ‘I can’t possibly not drive this car’, of course you can! Maybe it’s time to think the unthinkable and buy a Dublin Bus pass! “That is that kind of thinking that’s needed,” she con- cludes. “If people embrace the recession instead of get- ting depressed by it, and say, ‘Do you know what?We’re going to have to live in a totally different way’, maybe they’ll find that’s not a bad thing.”
Winter 2010 Irish Director 55
much greater than England. It’s dealt with far worse catastrophes than this’
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