Surface Ripples

Which Habits Have Changed Thanks to COVID?

 I was listening to a news broadcast recently during which the Marketing Director (I think that was their title) of a well-known retailer commented that lipstick sales had fallen as people were wearing lipstick less. Why?  Because they had to wear masks and there was no point in putting lipstick on only to cover it up again.

This is a fascinating example (unless you’re a cosmetics retailer, of course)of how habits have changed.  Another interesting statistic was that people are washing their hair less (although this trend seems to have commenced well before the coronavirus pandemic).

It made me ask: what aspects of peoples’ lives and institutional attitudes may have changed due to COVID?  One of the major changes most of us may have seen is that businesses are more relaxed about working from home.  Some are even offering it as part of the ‘standard’ employee package instead of as a ‘perk’.  At one point, this provoked debate about whether employees who worked from home should be paid less as they no longer had transport and other costs associated with commuting to work.   The counterargument (among others) was that employers needed less office space (saving rent) and would consume utilities such as electricity at a lower level and so were themselves saving money.  

Many employees were ‘furloughed’ or (worse) made redundant as employers struggled to contain costs.  Some found new jobs elsewhere, some started their own businesses, some decided to retire.  Those are returning to the workforce are apparently choosier about what they will do for a living and the conditions in which they will work.

One thing we’ve found in our family is that we have to plan more in advance to allow for things not being available in shops as regularly as they used to be before the COVID crisis.  We’re also more conscious about the proximity of others and about personal hygiene and sanitising surfaces that we touch.  In the country where I work, we still have to scan QR codes when entering business premises and wear masks outdoors at all times.  

All these and more are things to which many of us will have adjusted over the last two years. We will have adjusted in terms of: 

• Family life.
• Social life.
• Professional life.
• Holiday and shopping habits.
• The way we dress.
• Where are we go out and where, depending on how crowded it is likely to be.
• The way we shop: online or in person?
• Where we look for entertainment: whether a potentially crowded cinema in the same way that we did before coronavirus, or is Netflix the new cinema?
• Zoom meetings or face to face?

Many of us may not realise, but our behaviour has changed. Because this has happened over a relatively lengthy period of some 2 1/2 years the changes may now be imperceptible to us. They are “our new normal“.

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, Teamwork

posted by William Martin @ 08:53