As most business operations remain suspended with the increasing surge of coronavirus cases, here’s how you can keep your business active amid the crisis.
The massive disruption of the COVID-19 outbreak caused businesses across the globe to dwindle. This holds true most especially to restaurants, retail stores, and supply chains. With the imposition of lockdowns and the practice of social distancing, it is a challenge for businesses to remain active. Several companies implemented measures to respond to the ongoing crisis. However, the question of what happens next after the community quarantine remains. How should employers keep their business alive? How will they recover amid the suspension of operations that caused revenue loss and a global economic crisis?
As entrepreneurs, it is essential to come up with approaches to protect your business. This entails protecting your employees and attending to other obligations cut short during the lockdown. As the crisis continues, here are ways to recover your business after the community quarantine.
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Protecting the Backbone
Some companies and firms treat investors as their major assets. Yet entrepreneurs should look out more for the welfare of their employees. Any type of business can lose a little money or revenue but it hurts the company more if its very backbone—the employees—gets sick. The worst case is when the company decides to lay off workers. Apart from costs, the recruitment and training process takes more time, leaving little to get things moving again after the lockdown. So, here’s how you can protect your employees:
Communicate with Displaced Employees
Business owners should keep in contact with their employees, especially those affected by the novel coronavirus. From discussing wages and health insurance, providing additional assistance, to adjusting work schedules, these can help maintain good working relationships. After all, the last thing you want is suddenly losing workers amid this crisis.
Adjust Work Schedule
Worker layoffs are the usual approach of some entrepreneurs to recover from lockdowns. Yet again, this can lead to more recruitment costs and less help to keep the business alive. One way to address this is to adjust the working schedule. Office hours can be temporarily cut-off. This will give time for employees to adjust to life after quarantine. At the same time, have the entire company carefully plan their next move for the future.
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Transfer Workers to Other Operations
If there are operations that have been or are currently the hot spot for the COVID-19-affected, consider transferring affected employees to other sites. This can help retain their skills while letting business operations continue.
Keep Things Sanitized
While there is still no effective vaccine or treatment for the novel coronavirus, it is still crucial to keep everyone in the office, including the facilities, sanitized. Post notes and guidelines to remind everyone to constantly wash their hands, avoid touching their face, and keep from shaking hands. Most importantly, disinfect spaces and surfaces like desks, doorknobs, handrails, and fingerprint scanners.
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Reviewing Policies
Apart from protecting your employees, owners and leaders have to perform overall obligations for the company. This includes reviewing internal policies, client contracts, and adopting safety plans. Being prepared is better than dealing with the aftermath of a crisis. Here’s what entrepreneurs should do to help recover their business:
Business Interruption Insurance
In case of major profit loss, contact your insurance broker about the coverage qualifications. This is most important to restaurants and retail chains that have completely closed down during the community quarantine. Discussing with the broker may help you deal with interruptions in the future.
Be Transparent with Clients/Customers
Coming out of the lockdown seems like starting an entirely new operation. So, it is the perfect time to close any pending deals. It gives owners and clients time to review projects and plan out new ones crucial to maintain the business. For brands, be transparent to your customers. Share what the company is going through and how you are dealing with it. This forms and strengthens trust between you and your new and loyal customers.
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Review or Reconstruct Contracts
Discuss with your team all your supplier deals, contracts with clients and contributors, lease agreements, and other settlements that have been interfering with your business. You can consider terminating them or restructuring these agreements to benefit all the involved parties. This gives your business a fresh take on how you will operate moving forward.
Long-term Plans
The novel coronavirus is not the last of the disruption your business can experience. It is better to speak with your partners, investors, employees, and suppliers on what policies and measures to take in case another crisis happens. Apart from mapping out succession plans in case, the office organization chart has to move, back-up your company’s data in different media. You can also invest in work-from-home technology. In this way, the business can still move through digital means. Lastly, ensure back-up plans for the entire operations in the event of another lockdown, disaster, or other challenging times.
Photos from Unsplash.
