So with your uncertainty and my uncertainty there’s certainly a certain degree of uncertainty about……of that we can be quite……quite sure
To be fair if “Dealing with Uncertainty” was an Olympic Sport (assuming the damn thing is going ahead in Japan later this year) the UK could be quite confident of its medal prospects.
Nearly four years of uncertainty over Brexit has given way to fears about the Coronavirus – Quite rightly there are genuine concerns for the elderly and those with other Health Conditions but for most of us it’s a germ that will give us a couple of weeks of feeling a bit under the weather.
Governments are unsure how to act. Do you go the Italian route and lock the whole country down? Do you take the British stance of waiting and seeing? And the lack of testing in the US compared to elsewhere suggests the Americans may have a bigger problem than their current President believes.
On an individual level last weekend saw the hoarding of toilet paper and hand sanitiser – the latter a really dumb idea when one considers that whilst you may have a garage full of Carex, your continued well-being relies on EVERYBODY ELSE being able to wash their hands too.
So what can we do in business, especially a small business? For me the number one priority is to contact existing and potential customers to tell them what you are doing and what you plan to do to help them. Maybe some of the following will help:
- Do your sales team need to visit clients? – can they do their business via SKYPE and Zoom?
- Can your staff work from home?
- Are there any processes that you carry out for a client onsite that could be done remotely?
- Install a hand-sanitiser in your office.
- It is expected that the virus will die down naturally over the summer so do you have any offers for that period for clients who will commit to you now?
- Have an information box on your Home Page outlining the steps you are taking to keep your staff and your customers safe.
- Talk to your bank about some short-term assistance with perhaps an overdraft extension.
- If someone is sick don’t let them come to work – one sneeze into the air conditioning and everyone gets a dose.
- Encourage staff to take proper meal and coffee breaks and not to work past the end of the working day
- Make sure that workstations are at least 6 feet apart
This won’t go on forever – no doubt we’ll all look back in a few months’ time and wonder what the fuss was all about – because by then there will no doubt be something else to be worrying about.