If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us one thing, it is the need to be prepared. It caught all of us by surprise, and within weeks, whole countries and industries went into complete shutdown, costing billions of dollars in lost revenue and putting millions of jobs at risk. We are yet to see the long-term economic damage that the pandemic has caused, but one thing is for sure: many businesses will not be coming out the other end without a scar or two.
While you can never plan for every eventuality – after all, who would have thought a virus capable of wiping out hundreds of thousands of people would happen this year – there are steps that you can take to protect your business against some things that may occur in the future. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Improve health and safety and make it a priority
This should be a priority anyway, but it appears that many people perhaps were not taking personal hygiene, such as cleaning surfaces, covering faces when coughing or sneezing and washing hands, as seriously as they should. We know now that it is vital – coronavirus is not going anywhere soon and potentially could be something we have to learn to live with. For this reason, we must make health and safety and hygiene a priority in the workplace. This included access to clean, running water and spa, hand sanitizers where appropriate and opportunities to wash hands, as well as keeping surfaces spotlessly clean.
Having backup plans
A backup plan is a great business strategy.
If plan A isn’t working, do you have a plan B in place? Let’s take company vehicles, for example. You may rely on cars to get you from site to site, or meetings with clients and partners. Perhaps you use trucks and lorries to maneuver or deliver goods from sites or to customers. What would you do if these broke down? You would probably look at getting them replaced or repaired, but in the short-term, you need something in place if you want your business to continue operating as usual. Knowing where you can get 3/4 ton commercial pickup rentals is always a handy plan B, so you don’t damage your reputation or your profits any further than necessary.
Make remote working a thing
During the pandemic, most businesses who can have implemented some form of remote working, and for many, it has been a great success. It proves that staff do not need to be sitting in an office to work well. Now, as things slowly go back to normal and restrictions start to lift if you can allow staff to work from home at least some of the time, do it. It will reduce your overheads, take the pressure off your workforce and improve productivity.
The coronavirus pandemic has taught us many lessons when it comes to life and business. If one good thing has come out of it, is that we look at our business operations carefully and see how we can protect ourselves against all sorts of disasters and crises in the future.
