> Seems like it would also increase stress and encourage top performers to seek new opportunities. There's a third route: cut hours. Everybody gets every othe

> Seems like it would also increase stress and encourage top performers to seek new opportunities. There's a third route: cut hours. Everybody gets every other Friday off, and with that 10% reduction in hours, they get a 10% reduction in pay. It doesn't solve everything, but reduces the feeling of unfairness because your per-hour rate stays the same. (Provided you cancel less-important projects, etc. so that people actually have less work, not just nominally.) I think this approach is more common in cyclical industries like manufacturing. If you're probably going to need those people again, you want to keep them around. But if the goal is to reduce the company size, you could try combining it with attrition.