Surface Ripples

COVID - No Longer an Excuse?

 As I write this, the world is now under the threat of a new ‘omicron’ strain of coronavirus.  From what I gather, it’s contagious BUT, if victims have been vaccinated, symptoms are milder.

Some of the problems arising from COVD that we’ve noted are:

• Many towns/cities in the UK (and other countries) are simply not “designed” for social distancing. 
• Many businesses face the same problem.
• Travel has changed and will continue to change, with the results being higher prices, masks, blood tests, and last-minute alterations.
• Business travel will never recover to pre-COVID-19 levels
• More use will be made of IT and “big data” in tracking apps on our smartphones, (with all the privacy concerns that entails)…
• Health services need to gear up for another potentially deadly variant that is resitant to current vaccines.
• China will continue to face world scrutiny and (possibly) sanctions.
• Supply chains will no longer be centred on China.
• The world economy may never recover to pre-COVID-19 levels.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the world adopted a “piecemeal approach” to security threats as, quite naturally, some countries felt they were more at risk than others.  In the face of COVID, we’re all equal and no one is totally ‘safe’.  

What this means for the workplace is that we can’t keep using ‘COVID’ as a catch-all excuse.  My question is, ‘Is COVID still a valid excuse for degraded service?’  We’ve had two years of living with it AND are likely to have to live with it for the foreseeable future.   Governments, people and businesses use the phrase ‘the new normal’ as part of their daily vocabulary.  We all need to understand, accept and change our way of living and working to fit this.

We’re seeing slow progress, particularly as the take-up rate of vaccinations grows in world populations and immunity levels increase.  There remains a huge gap in the ‘developing world’.  This needs to be plugged – fast.

There’s also a small (but vocal) minority of ‘anti-vaxxers’ who need to make a choice: be vaccinated or be excluded from many of the activities you take for granted (they’re not a ‘legal right’).

The question for businesses, especially those that need people to come in (and I don’t mean ‘essential’ businesses like supermarkets), is how they adapt to serve.  This will mean rules for both employees and customers alike to protect both from the other. 

The news for omicron’s effects is that, for those who have been vaccinated, it’s a mild case.  This will be our target – to get to the stage where having coronavirus becomes like a dose of seasonal ‘flu’.  Once this becomes the norm, we may well see business returning to ‘Business as Usual’.

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.

Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Selling, Strategy

posted by William Martin @ 15:17