A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

The last 16 months has seen businesses that can trade, do so mainly with increased costs and significantly reduced income. There are six million SME’s in the UK accounting for 99% of all businesses. According to the?June 2021 Simply Business report, 81% of which said they had not had enough support from the government. Monday 19th?July sees the UK government lift all the remaining social distancing laws. For many businesses this represents the light at the end of a very long tunnel. It will be interesting to see what the post-pandemic business world looks like.

For me, there are three key areas that business will have to carefully consider;

1. Employee relations. Employers will want to establish normality as soon as they can. They must be careful not to alienate or lose their employees in doing so. Being a good employer means offering working conditions in which employees feel good and are cared for.?CIPD’s Embedding New Ways of Working report?detailed that 61% of employers reported an improved work-life balance because of home working. This may be true in the long-term, however, three weeks into the first lockdown, we re-opened our offices to staff. There was no requirement to come in, we’ve always adopted flexible working, but it was clear to see that working from home was affecting their mental wellbeing. I have always preferred to interact with staff and customers in person, bouncing ideas and learning from each other - I’ve always wanted to be part of the conversation and be in the room where it happens.?

Employees have been used to working from home and will most likely want to retain some if not all of that flexibility. The knock-on effect is what happens to real estate and our city centres? If employees spend more time working remotely, the physical office will not be needed, at least in the same way as before. There is likely to be significant amounts of square footage available. Supply and demand mean rents will fall - what will replace office space? What happens to all businesses currently reliant on footfall from office staff; food outlets, convenience stores etc

2. Responsible Practice. Larger businesses have whole departments dealing with corporate responsibility, but this doesn’t necessarily equate to responsible practice. Too many businesses focus on maximising profits and shareholder value. The Covid-19 pandemic painfully highlighted a lack of liquidity in many businesses. In our own business, we suffered from small businesses and large financial institutions alike simply not paying their bills to shore up their own finances. They simply had no financial resilience. Every business should embrace responsible practice.?

3. Supply Chain Resilience. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted vulnerabilities in product supply. A combination of factory shutdowns, changes in consumer demand and shipping companies restricting supply to push up prices has put many supply chains under significant pressure. Businesses will have to do significant work to understand exactly where their supply risks lie so they can protect themselves. The obvious way to protect themselves is to diversify the supplier base and buy in more local regions. This all adds expense. Each business will have to weigh up the cost of guaranteeing supply versus their profits and product price elasticity. Customers are not always willing to pay more.

There are challenges ahead for business. The future is not certain but there are reasons to be positive. According to the?June 2021 Simply Business report, 38% of small business owners believe they will recoup the money lost during the pandemic in under three years. Let’s hope we can recover quicker!

#Business?#Future?#Futurism #Happiness #Health #HumanResources?#Leadership?#Management??#MentalHealth?