Looking at the raging impacts of COVID-19 across the world and the toll it is taking on all the facets of the society, the public healthcare systems must act resolutely to curtail its spread in the new hotspots apart from China. Even though survival is the need of the hour yet, we cannot completely overlook the economic impacts that the disease has and will bring along with itself. The uncertainty around the virus has piled up to such levels wherefrom retracting seems impossible. Therefore, we must be aware and ready to tackle every challenge thrown our way. During this phase, we need to act to save the companies of the market from falling on their faces. In the segment below, we will be jotting down some ways that will aid you in leading your business healthily through the coronavirus crisis.
Be updated
First things first, remember that we are battling against an invisible enemy; thus, every shred of information that we can collect about it will make a difference. Even three weeks ago, it seemed like only China has been affected by the virus, but now the tables have turned, and it looks like nobody will be at the mercy of this deadly infection. Update your data as much as possible to keep a daily tab of the events and plan accordingly.
Beware of the faux
While all the social media pages, websites, newspapers, and TV channels flood the public with relevant reports about the coronavirus, there’s a lot of faux doing rounds too, and you must beware of them. With fast-changing information, we tend to overlook the weak signals and then consequently overreact to situations even before they are proved credible. When you look at a piece of news and take it into account, verify its source and the amount of authenticity before acting on it.
Reframe your understanding of what is happening
The sad truth is, large organizations are hardly flexible. The managers of these companies either refuse to believe things unless they are entirely sure and even if they do, they hesitate to change their policies in fear of creating confusion in the organization. Nevertheless, in tough times like these, there is no other option but to reframe the understanding of what is happening to comply with their rapidly changing demands.
Ensure that your response to the crisis is balanced
There are seven facets in which your response to the crisis should be balanced, and they are:
- Communication with the employees
- Catering to the needs of your workforce even when some of their facilities are restricted
- Flexibility for remote workers,
- Travel necessities,
- Supply-chain stabilization,
- Business tracking and forecasting to prepare for the unpredictable fluctuations
- Trying to be a part of the broader solution to support the others in the supply chain, community, and industry.
Use principles of resilience while formulating policies.
Experts believe that to stand rigidly at the face of plagued and unfavorable events; the key is to formulate resilient policies. All efficacious resilient systems share six common characteristics, and they are:
- Redundancy to look further than the general threshold of solutions.
- Diversity to outline multiple approaches so that even if one or two of them fail, the others can strongly oppose the predicaments.
- Use modular systems to know how your supply system can recover in both the short and longer-term.
- Evolvability, where there is no one definite answer for the problems but, it is possible to slide towards the more effective solutions.
- Rely on prudence to treat the worst-case scenarios and correspondingly fashion contingency strategies.
- Have in mind that we are all in this together; therefore, when illustrating policies, you cannot leave out any member of your company. Solutions must exhibit the virtue of embeddedness to strengthen the business in the longer term.
Once the situations start getting better, companies should reflect on their actions so far and learn from them so that they can be effectually implemented during the next crisis.
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