4 things leaders can do help their firm recover quickly from COVID-19

Unless your organisation is a health-care, courier or telecommunications provider, COVID-19 has hit hard.   As tough as it seems, there is a future though.  However, the businesses that will thrive will be the ones that used this crisis as an opportunity to strengthen internally and position themselves to capitalise on the inevitable rebound.   

The key to escaping the COVID claws is something we call “R&R” - Reset and Renew.  You need to “Reset” your current operating model now to account for the new realities.  But after a successful Reset, you then need to “Renew” and innovate to grow in the new environment.  

Success in the “”Renew” phase requires you to do things differently – you may be targeting the same consumers with the same product, but now you have to address a change in their basic needs that reflects the “new normal”.   

Do you see your organisation adjusting and changing?  If not then here are 4 things to focus on to get to where you need to be:  

1. Conduct an interview/workshop/focus group aimed at identifying the value your customers now expect from you

Everything your firm does should be aimed at giving value to your customers.  Their definition of value might be changed by COVID-19.  For example, some persons might now see value in home deliveries where before they did not.   Your manufacturer customer may have valued your long-term relationship with one core supplier before, but the experience of COVID-19 may make them ask you to adopt a more “Agile” business model with an ability to quickly obtain goods from multiple sources. 

Your first task is then to know what your customers want and the added-value that they are now expecting.

2. Change your existing activities and relationships to provide the new value

After knowing where you are going, you need to identify what you are currently doing and adjust these to eliminate the non-value added activities and focus on the opportunities.

For example, customers might now see value in your office giving the assurance of being disease-free. You might have used a “chip credit card” that required persons to use their hands to type in their “PIN” to process a payment. However, your replacement of this with “contactless” credit cards may require different processes for receiving, processing and reconciling payments.

Looking overseas, in the UK in 2019 less than 1% of doctors appointments took place via e-links.    Fast-forward one year, and we see that during their “lockdown” fully 100% of patients were assessed using telecommunications.   This dramatic shift meant the adoption of new processes and ways so as to facilitate effective and safe remote diagnoses.   

3. Develop a skill-upgrading strategy to enable the new processes to be effected by staff

Identify the competency requirements that will flow from the new processes, then review the skill-inventory of your staff to ensure that they can provide the services that are now needed. Based on what we have seen so far, employees post-COVID will need strong digital, cognitive, social and emotional skills. You should then develop and implement a skill-adjustment programme designed to give persons the ability to function in the “new normal”.

Your workforce will need to be flexible to increase the adaptability and resilience of the organisation. For instance, since they may now be the only way of physically coming into contact with customers, truck drivers in your distribution firm may now need to upgrade their emotional and social skills and be able to function as relationship managers. 

4. Don’t retrench, reallocate!

It’s difficult to resist not cutting the training budget at this time of a cash-crunch.  However, although significant opportunities for growth may emerge, you will not be able to capitalise on them if persons do not have the skills to deal with the “new normal”.  Make skill-building a key strategic lever for getting competitive advantage.  You can build a new business model to take advantage of opportunities, but this has to have reskilling muscle behind it to be successful. 

What you can and should do is identify on what you will need to do in the new normal, then make your learning ecosystem more digital (including in-sync digital components to replace in-person ones) and more accessible to your employees.    Remember, organisations can’t be resilient if their workforces aren’t!