Dear reader,
it is time for us to go online! And by us, I mean all of you, who are not there yet...
Starting next Monday (16.03.2020), Bulgaria will be in emergency situation. We have one case of COVID-19, so our government is shutting down everything! Schools, universities, cafes and restaurants, hotels ... Everything except hospitals, food stores and supermarkets and pharmacies.
Today people decided that it is time for panic, so what happened is that the stores got emptied out and everything was sold. Somehow, we forgot that panic is always working against us...
Never mind the people, companies have started to panic too. What will happen? How are we going to work and generate income, if we cannot open doors and work? These are the questions that almost every company is asking. How about we wait and see?
Creativity in these situations is one of the solutions. Being creative, transforming your entire business model in just days is what will save you, your company and your employees. I see a lot of companies have started thinking of letting people go - kicking them on the street, simply because they cannot afford to pay them salary, if they cannot generate income. This is the worse case scenario... Nobody wants to work for free and not know when they will get salary, and nobody wants to work in an unsafe environment. If the employer is not capable of providing a safe working environment, then employees will be let go. This is however, the only option for many companies.
There are those, who can change, who can adapt to the current situation and instead of letting go their employees, they can create a home office environment. Of course, the ones who already have this option will be forced to make it permanent for the duration of the emergency situation. This however, comes with a lot of negatives and not so many positives. For example:
Employees will work from home - this is a convenience for them and they will not be put in any danger of getting infected. However, the entire family will be home too, which means - no work environment, but rather an environment full of distractions. Make sure you create rules for the time "being at work" and the time "being at home", despite the fact that you are not leaving your own home for this.
Employers will have limited supervision opportunity - how will you be able to know and monitor the work of your employees? This is totally up to you! You can schedule online meetings, share screens, give work in progress every day, every hour, every few hours. Set-up internal systems to monitor everything from a distance. These are solutions that have already been developed.
These two points are the most important ones. We at Novea have established a home office environment anyways, so for us this is what we do every day - nothing will change. We know the drill.
So if you have any creative ideas, about the current situation, please don't hesitate to share them with us! We will be glad to discuss this and give you feedback.
Cheers from me and stay safe!