COVID-19 – Companies - How you treat your employees will affect your long-term brand, commercials and standing as a great place to work
Glenn Jones MSc ChFCIPD ChFCIPP
Global HR/People Freelance Consultant @ GGJ Global Consulting Limited | CPO, HR Shared Services, HR COO, Payroll
COVID-19 – Companies - How you treat your employees will affect your long-term brand, commercials and standing as a great place to work.
Let me start by saying that we are in the middle of an unprecedented global virus that is starting to affect lots of people. My condolences go out to those families where their loved ones have passed, and my best wishes go out to anyone who is currently suffering with the virus.
It’s common sense (although I remember the quote that “Common Sense is not that Common”) that how companies around the world treat their employees right now will impact them in the future. Remember the Richard Branson quote:
“Look after your employees and they will look after your clients”!
If we take each item of impact i.e. brand, commercials and great place to work, here’s my view on the negative effect:
1. Long-term brand – there’s a great change happening across the world where companies are now looking at the social impact of what they do. If you recall the restaurant analogy of receiving bad service, whilst company A will protect their finances by not paying employees, company B will try to help their greatest component. The employees of company A and B talk to their friends and which company do you think will benefit in the future?
2. Commercials – paying employees (whether this be fully or not) during crisis, obviously has a big impact if you don’t have revenue coming in. However, it’s been shown that employees who are looked after by company’s work harder than those who don’t.
3. Great place to work – in point 2, which one would you work for if you were that employee and what damage do you think would be done to the company in their efforts to attract talent into their organisation?
I recognise that not every company has a wealth of cash surplus in the bank, however, simply not helping employees during this time is unacceptable unless the company is so small that they will go under themselves. With so many people around the world on the breadline, a closure without pay will make them suffer. For example, I met a guy in Boston recently who is autistic, works two-jobs and is also an insomniac. He’s been on Facebook this morning saying that neither company is going to pay him during the shut-down so he’s trying to crowd fund; we are sending him some money today.
Finally, this is a tough one and every company has to do what they have to do right now, however, we all have the responsibility to do the right thing. After all don’t we keep hearing that “Employees are the biggest component of every company”?
Principal Solutions Consultant - People Management Division
4 年Great post - thanks for posting
Chief People Officer at @First Bus a division of FirstGroup plc
4 年Totally agree Glen business need to look after their people. Two things worth adding please don’t just concentrate on your perm employees take a moment to think about your freelancers and temps if don’t pay them (legal you don’t ) while there not working they may have find other ways to earn a living and potential risk infection. Why not pay everyone who works for you 90% of previous months salary with a promise to rectify once the crises is over? Second let’s keep communicating with our teams use video more than calls and emails. Don’t forget the small talk and ask people how they are doing people will feel isolated quite quickly. Time for leaders and managers to stand up and really focus on all there people.
Providing Assurance and Advisory Services to a Major Retail Cloud enabled HR transformation
4 年Makes sense Glenn, time will tell which companies do the right thing.
Associate Director, HR Recruitment: Midlands and North Regions at Frazer Jones
4 年Thanks for sharing Glenn, I hope all businesses with the financial ability to take approach do!