In a period of financial difficulty, such as the one being experienced by the entire world right now, the key to survival of most companies is in seeking out solutions with the maximum of benefits with the least of loss from the company itself.  This usually translates into sourcing out resources that is projected to yield the most in terms of results for the company, without the company having to shell out too much to acquire it or accrue a large expense in the production of the favorable results.  For some companies, this would necessarily mean downsizing their existing workforce and retaining only those that are particularly indispensable, or those who are able to function in multiple capacities, so as to preclude any slowing in production and operations, even if the workforce has been cut in half in number.  There companies, however, that frown upon this practice, and see the massive laying off of employees as not only unjust but also a very unwise move on the part of management, since the greatest resource of the company is being compromised in removing such a large portion of the work force, namely the employees themselves.  While these forward-thinking companies do acknowledge the need to stem the bleeding of finances of the company by removing employees deemed as redundant, they will all agree that the general scale that is practiced during such massive lay offs is simply too much.  What is needed is to identify the tasks that can still be efficiently be performed by certain members of the workforce, and then put into effect a re-evaluation of the number of the work force that really needs to be retained, and how much of the employees is a realistic figure to let go off.  The process, however, should not stop there.  The remaining number of the workforce should be trained to ensure that their skills are indeed of a quality to allow the company to deal with the crisis.  This is where e-learning solutions come in, to compliment the training to be given to the workforce.

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