As a leader in your department, you also serve as a voice for your people. The question, then, is how to use that voice to persuade upper management that the team can't perform quality work with such a skeletal staff. First off, study the team's current output and determine the necessary staffing level to maintain a balance between productivity and quality without burning workers out. Then identify and recommend the cuts that must be made in your production so as to keep delivering the best-quality products and services you can to customers within the current payroll restrictions. Make it clear that staff attrition is occurring due to being unable to attract and keep workers to take their place. You might suggest a kind of compromise by asking management for one or two staffers and then, after a while, report on the subsequent improvement in work output and customer satisfaction. That could give you solid proof to show to your superiors that in this case, at least, less is not more. E