Are you Opening with a Plan for Success?
COVID-19 has had a unique impact on each of our clients. Some, in the building industry for instance, have what feels like unlimited demand, but constrained supply as their vendors are unable to supply labor to process material to fill orders. Some, in the food service industry for instance, have no labor to serve customers and because of lock downs, have only recently been able to serve them at all. And still others, in service industries are beginning to bring employees back to the office after having sent them to work from home. This month we look at the things owners should look at as they reopen / restart their business.
Training
This is an obvious need as you add staff. New team members will need to be trained and brought up-to-speed. Especially if your industry is one with a high expectation for compliance to regulations. Not so obvious perhaps, is the need to retrain furloughed team members as they return to work. It’s important to take them through a reintroduction program to refresh their understanding of compliance and other baseline knowledge to bring them back up to speed. This training should include new aspects of the job such as regulatory requirements, process changes and requirements imposed by municipal and other governments.
Job Structure
The pandemic forced a change in how many businesses operate with remote work, social distancing and other changes to the specifics of how jobs are handled at the individual level. We are starting to see changes in how large organizations are thinking about real estate and how much they need. Since we have conducted this experiment in job structure, it would be wise to take a look at the impact of those changes. In some cases, no doubt, the impact was negative. But on many fronts, changes forced upon us have been good for the business and for employee engagement and quality of life. Implications to review include changes in:
· Physical security and vulnerabilities including health screening;
· Employee preferences, satisfaction and engagement (satisfaction and engagement are not the same);
· Real estate requirements and costs;
· Systems functionality and security;
· Customer experience and preferences;
· Product and service quality and margins; and
· Regulatory compliance and the cost of compliance.
Contingency Plan
Thinking about ramping up should also include thinking about how things could go sideways (again). As much as we all want things to get better, there are wild cards that could slow down or reverse progress; COVID variants, severe resurgence in other parts of the world, and unexpected challenges like food scarcities and shortages of other commodities. Examine your business for vulnerabilities to supply chain disruption, government intervention and other risks. Then take each vulnerability and brainstorm with your leadership team about how to mitigate the risk of those events occurring and the impact of them if they should occur.
Call To Action
Develop a strategy to deal with expanding/reopening.
1. Develop reopening plan.
2. Develop training specific requirements.
3. Develop a contingency plan to respond as things fail to go according to plan.
I hope you found something to apply to your business in this MBR. Let me know either way.
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