COVID-19 has changed a lot of things for us in a very short span of time. From schools shutting down for months to the economy collapsing, the world was facing a global crisis. In this case, a global pandemic. With the pandemic has come turmoil and uncertainty for businesses and organizations worldwide. Companies are hanging on by a thread to survive in this crisis, especially when businesses are taking a huge hit in all areas.
Crisis management in such times has become even more difficult. The impact of the pandemic is affecting the ability of e-commerce businesses to meet customer demands and strategic goals. Whether you’re an employee or an employer, delivering a positive outcome in such a crisis takes serious understanding and action.
To help you and your e-commerce business stand strong and achieve long-term goals effectively, we’ve listed down the 5 ways you can manage your business successfully during the pandemic. Let’s get started!
Value Employee Well-Being
In times of crisis, companies and businesses are responsible for making the right decisions – keeping their customers, stakeholders, and employees’ interests in mind. Adapting to rapid change isn’t easy, for both, the business and its employees. However, as a business, you must find alternative arrangements for employees, prioritizing their safety and health. Your employees are an asset, and valuing their well-being in such times is important for company growth and productivity.
Create suitable working arrangements for your employees, and make sure they’re as comfortable and relaxed as possible to work to the best of their ability. Provide them with equipment, a fast and cheap internet service, communication tools, and a lot of motivation and appreciation. Whether you have part-time students or full-time parents as your employees, as an employer you want to make sure you’re benefitting from their efforts without exhausting them out or lowering their productivity.
Understand ‘Life happens’
As explained previously, employee wellbeing is important for the growth of your business amid the pandemic. If you’re running an e-commerce business or managing the employees under it, you have the power and authority to simplify your employees’ lives with just a few small changes! After all, business management and high productivity in this pandemic require full support and communication between both sides, and the least you can do is be more accessible to your employees and understand their situation.
Every state currently has undergone a strict lockdown, while some are still under it. Everyone is forced to quarantine within their houses, especially school-going children. Now that the kids are taking online classes, parents have to ensure their kids remain at the top of their classes. This requires them to be more flexible and maintain a work-life balance. As an employer, you have to understand work arrangements at home can never be the same as at the office. There are multiple distractions a person faces working from home. The better you understand this, the more helpful you can be to your employees and the more productivity they can show in return.
Maintain Expenses and Keep Budget Records
The pandemic has greatly affected business plans, strategies, and budgets globally, regardless of the industry or target market. To overcome financial instability or budget cuts, it’s important to understand HOW the crisis affects your plans and budget in the first place.
Create flexible and scalable financial plans for different scenarios and test them to learn their impact on financial performance. Make sure to stay agile and revise business plans and budget assumptions to understand where your business is taking the most hit financially. Also, take into account, location, technology, workforce, operating requirements, and vendors.
Evaluate specific financial support from investors and banks such as extra credit or debt refinancing. Revising and adjusting your expense from every angle is important to avoid irrelevant budget cuts.
Understand Recruiting Is Expensive
Due to the pandemic, most companies and businesses, especially enterprises are laying off their workforce or reducing salaries to save more money for survival. However, this isn’t the most effective way to do that. By laying off their workforce, they will have to spend more money on recruitment now as people want a job now more than ever.
It’s not only money that is expensive. Time is money too in today’s era. You will have to dedicate a huge chunk of time to identify the right resources, interviewing them, analyzing their skills, and finding the best replacements. On the contrary, cutting down an employee’s salary only demotivates them and makes them less efficient, which in return is harmful to your business.
Adjust Goals and Expectations
Things have changed and no one saw a global pandemic coming which is why businesses are coming across huge roadblocks even in the simplest business scenarios. Unforeseen situations require you to adapt and adjust your expectations. You cannot expect to make double of what you made pre-COVID19 in the first few weeks of the pandemic. Having high expectations can hurt your business.
As a business, you should consider potential liabilities, identify preventive measures, conduct risk assessments, evaluate economic impact, manage contracts and most importantly communicate your goals and expectations with your employees!
For instance, working from home is very different from working on-station. In this tough time, expecting your employees to be available without zero flexibility is not an option. Your goal should be to value employee wellbeing and their efforts. The expectations should align with your goals if you want to overcome the impact of COVID-19.
Aiming too high will pressure you to achieve your goals with limited resources. It’s toxic and you don’t want your business to run out of resources to achieve a specific goal during tough times. Once you’ve achieved your set goals, review employee and business performance to understand whether your business is heading in the right direction or not.
To Wrap It Up
Learn to adjust accordingly during the pandemic and understand the time and efforts your employees are putting into their work for your business. By keeping these 5 tips in mind, with a bit of patience and hard work, you can surely meet your customer demands and stand strong!
Baldwin Jackson is a successful digital marketer with expertise in search engine optimization and content marketing. The perfect balance of his analytical ability and creative thinking is what sets him apart from other practitioners in the digital marketing realm. He has helped a lot of small and medium-sized businesses in crafting their digital marketing strategies that are not only cost-effective but delivers results as well.
Baldwin is also a proud father of two kids and a Sports enthusiast. When he is not working, you will find him watching ESPN and NFL network. He has been able to get an amazing package on his favorite channels from Buytvinternetphone.com.
