During recent months, Coronavirus has threatened and changed businesses across the country and the globe. With stay-at-home orders, new safety regulations, and a changing (in some cases dwindling) market, it is critical that you adapt your business and management style. To keep up with the market and your customer base. Here are three ways to remain relevant and manage your business in these strange and trying times.
Reduce Physical Interaction and Provide Flexibility
With the risks involved with group interactions and physical contact, you should keep meetings and activities to a minimum. A good alternative is to set up meetings over the internet. This way any briefing can still be achieved without the need for actual physical interaction. In the same way, you should also try to allow as many employees to work remotely as possible. Some individuals actually work better from home anyway.
It will also be beneficial to allow your employees more flexibility as they will be working to restructure their home lives as well. Some of your employees will have certain health requirements or children who will need extra accommodation during these trying times. Try to be understanding and allow them the flexibility that they need to balance work and home life.
Be Transparent and Stay Online
Honesty is the best policy. Give your customers the opportunity to sympathize with your brand. Rise to the occasion by being honest about any changes or issues that your business is facing. If people trust your brand, they will likely be glad to do what it takes to help keep you afloat. You can still manage through video calls and emails.
In addition to being forthright with your customer base, you will need to increase your online presence more voraciously than ever. Since the onset of the pandemic, online traffic has skyrocketed. You will have to advertise, promote, and distribute through online platforms to stay relevant. You should also be checking your market and competitors regularly since the online market is such a rapidly changing environment.
Expect the Worst
Even though some parts of the country are seeing a decreasing number of cases and things seem to be getting better, you should employ long-term strategies to stay relevant. Manage as if things will not return to normal because we just don’t know when they will. This way, you will not be dealing with strategies that were not meant to be employed permanently long after they were projected to end. This is a good policy under any circumstance, but especially when the market climate resides in such an unknown state.
This is also important when it comes to employee retention. Be sure to plan for long-term changes so that you can retain as many employees as possible through the trials of Coronavirus. Keeping employees that know your business and have worked through the rough-stuff will help you in the long-run if and when things get back to normal. Long-term employees are an invaluable resource and will always improve the equity of your business.
