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lead organisation back after coronavirus pandemic

7 Effective Tips to Lead Your Organisation Back to Normal After Coronavirus

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There are some early signs across countries and regions around the world that the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is perhaps coming under reasonable control.

The harshest of all lockdowns, imposed on the city of Wuhan in China; the centre of the global outbreak; have now been lifted by the Chinese government, allowing flights and train services in and out of the city.

In Germany, the national government has slowly and cautiously eased lockdown measures; allowing bookshops, florists, fashion stores, and some other small shops to reopen.

In the UK, the national government has indicated that there are possible chances that lockdown restrictions could be slowly and gradually relaxed starting mid-May.

In Sweden, the national government chose not to enforce lockdown. Instead, it adopted a strategy to advise Swedes to adopt reasonable social distancing practice. Swedes officials claim that COVID-19 infection in the country is stabilising; though the adopted strategy may have backfired as the country records its highest daily coronavirus death toll of 185 yesterday.

As the total number of COVID-19 cases generally starts to drop globally, the number of recoveries continues to rise, and the COVID-19 pandemic curve is flattening in several countries and regions, this would be a very good time for leaders to identify, assess, and make decisions on processes, procedures, resources, and actions that could help shape the future of their businesses and organisations in the post-coronavirus era and beyond.

After a crisis you need to get back to normal, and that can be tricky.

— Charlotte Insinger

I’d previously discussed tips on how to effectively lead your team, business, and organisation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this article, I thought it would be useful to discuss some tips on how to effectively lead your business or organisation after the COVID-19 crisis:

  1. Apply security patches & updates across your enterprise

    Several of your employees would have taken some business equipment home with them, so that they could continue to effectively and efficiently work from home during the lockdown.

    As people return to work, they bring their respective devices (laptops, mobile phones, tablets, and even virtual environments) back to work with them, and would simply connect these endpoints to your corporate network.

    This scenario could quite easily be the harbinger of a terrible nightmare for your business; a potentially critical risk that you’d need to effectively mitigate against.

    With a good enterprise-level patch manager, all devices and systems connected to your entire network can be scanned, missing security patches and updates detected (for applications and operating systems), and relevant/appropriate patches/updates applied accordingly, as defined in your policies.

    Strict compliance with your IT policies and procedures should be required here.

    But be very careful and thorough! A poorly configured patches or updates applied across your network could cause severe disruptions and possibly failures to your business operations.

  2. Stay connected to your stakeholders (not just shareholders)

    As I’d previously mentioned, one of the core competencies of a trusted leader during a crisis is building an atmosphere of trust and confidence. The same rule applies after a crisis.

    Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.

    — Fred Rogers

    As we approach the tail-end of the Response Phase of the coronavirus crisis, now would be a good time to proactively kick-off planning activities and actions for the next phase – the Recovery Phase (and I dare say, the Building Phase?).

    Building strong and mutually-respected relationships with your suppliers, your employees, your investors, your clients, your distributors, and every person or entity within your cycle of business operations.

    Miscommunication is the root of a lot of trouble. You need someone who communicates well, and who also understands the issues.

    — Peter Wakkie

    Establish sound communication strategies for how to relay what your business plans to do next, how you plan to execute the plans, what objectives your plans aim to achieve, what/who you need to help make the plans successful, and when you need all these pieces to start coming together.

    You need to send forth relevant, appropriate and timely messages, and also be willing to listen and follow through with key conversations; keep communication and consultation channels open & active.

    Collaborate, co-operate, and communicate more often, with clarity and purpose.

    At a time like this, over-communicate is overrated!

  3. Have a Remote Work (i.e. telework) policy and procedures in place

    With lockdown measures in place in several countries and regions, a very large number of people were compelled to work from home, work remotely, or telework.

    It’s reasonable to say that such working practice was new to several businesses, and took many other businesses and organisations by surprise; without an established telework policy and procedures; or best practices; in place.

    Allowing employees to telework during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a learning point for lots of businesses and organisations. And the practice is here to stay.

    Therefore, establishing fitting telework policy and procedures; that are build on best practices and allow for increased job flexibility for your employees; should be on your to-do list.

  4. A Crisis Management Plan is not an Incident Response Plan

    There have been some quite heated debates amongst leaders on whether a crisis management plan is the same as an incident response plan.

    Yes, of course, a crisis is an incident. But an incident management plan is not necessarily a crisis management plan.

    One could argue that a crisis management plan is a seamless and well-blended combo of an incident management plan, a disaster recovery plan, a business continuity plan, and, to some extent, a risk management plan. But it’s certainly not one without the others.

    crisis management

    In several businesses and organisations, certain critical services; e.g. Finance services, IT services; are always expected (or assumed) to be available regardless of emergencies, crisis situations, or limited resources. This very objective forms a key part of the holistic plans (i.e. CM, IM, DR, BC, and RM plans).

    I’d say that it is best practice to have a crisis management plan in place; alongside the other important plans that support effective and smooth critical business operations.

    Perhaps you need to implement ISO-22301 Guidelines within your organisation?

    ISO 22301 is applicable to all organizations, regardless of size, industry or nature of business. It is also relevant to certification and regulatory bodies as it enables them to assess an organization’s ability to meet its legal or regulatory requirements.

    — International Organization for Standardization

  5. Leverage relevant and applicable Coronavirus Relief Scheme

    Several national and regional governments have established schemes to help businesses and organisations; of different sizes and in various sectors; survive the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

    These schemes, or variations thereof, already exist in several countries including the US, the UK, Germany, France, and Canada.

    If you’re a small business; or if your business or organisation satisfies set-out criteria; it may be useful to leverage aids and assistance available under applicable scheme.

  6. Have a two-tier board system in place

    Does your business or organisation need a supervisory board?

    A supervisory board is made up of non-executive directors that work very closely with (and assist) the executive directors to help ensure key business objectives/policies are tracked from inception to execution, by providing timely and invaluable advice.

    Non-executive directors who don’t see the crisis coming; that is a crisis in itself.

    — Willem Stevens

    Both the executive board and the supervisory board form what’s called the two-tier board system. Of course, the executive board should always be in charge, and fully accountable for enterprise-level decisions and outcomes.

    If all goes well, the board and non-executive directors form a kind of one-tier board during a crisis situation, in which non-executive directors get different responsibilities…. This changes nothing in the role of a non-executive director as such; that will always be to give advice, to test and approve.

    — Charlotte Insinger

  7. Know your lemons from your oranges

    In the midst of all there is to do, it probably easy to inadvertently take your eyes off the ball, particularly, regarding quite a few other important matters like regulatory and compliance requirements, and increased malicious cyber activities that stem from the COVID-19 crisis.

    At times like these, matters such as these may not necessarily be on top of your to-do list.

    Getting your business back on winning ways with innovative and well-planned and executed strategies is very important.

    But these matters should certainly be somewhere on your priority list, because they are important and could quite easily make situations worse if and when they ever go wrong.

    know lemons from oranges

Right now, lockdown measures in your location may have been lifted, are about to be lifted, or not even planned to be lifted very soon.

But the fact remains that these measures will eventually be lifted, and life would gradually return to normal.

So, at the end, all businesses and organisations must be ready for the imminent change.

And, with the right set of plans and actions, you and your team can be confident that you’re all prepared and setup for success in the new order.

Our research shows that three of the four qualities of a great business leader are largely intuitive: (1) sets vision and strategy; (2) drives growth; and (3) displays financial acumen. The fourth is managing crises. [This fourth quality] is underappreciated, overlooked, and often not even one of the top requirements – until a crisis hits.

Are there some other insightful and important tips you’d like to add? Share your thoughts and views.

Stay safe. Stay productive. Lead your team from the front. Lead your team to the next phase.

lead your organisation during covid-19

Top Tips to Organise and Lead Your Organisation During Coronavirus Pandemic

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Coronavirus; COVID-19; has continued its spread to several nations around the world, severely impacting the worldwide population and global economic activities.

In recent weeks and months, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, several businesses, organisations, national governments, and government agencies all over the world have had to introduce extraordinary and stringent measures to help control and limit the spread of the disease.

Recent news and stats show that the United States is now the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the US surpasses China and Italy with over 100,000 reported cases and over 1,700 deaths (as at 28/Mar/2020).

In a previous article, I listed some of these measures and guidance, and discussed 8 key ways that businesses and organisation could manage disruptions caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

Yesterday, here in the UK, it was announced that the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, have both tested positive for the coronavirus.

Also, the nation’s Chief Medical Officer, Prof Chris Whitty, is self-isolating after showing symptoms compatible with Covid-19.

You’d agree with me that remotely leading a project team of a few people is arguably challenging enough, and requires resourcefulness, tenacity, and leadership qualities.

And doing so in these rather disruptive times is even more challenging.

But I’ll reasonably argue that such challenges aren’t as enormous as the challenges faced by leaders of businesses, organisations, and nations at all levels; people who are inherently required to demonstrate sound leadership qualities and preparedness in the face of critical crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.

This set of challenges appear surreal and, perhaps, somewhat overwhelming. But, like every other challenge out there, these challenges are eventually manageable and conquerable.

In this article, I share my thoughts, suggestions and tips on key ways that leaders can effectively organise and lead their businesses and organisations during these unprecedented times:

  1. Make sure you have the right sets of IT tools & kits required for the job

    Your collective abilities to effectively communicate and have virtual meetings depend largely on the state and effectiveness of whatever technologies, tools, and systems you have available to you.

    “Your collective abilities” as used here refers to the abilities of your entire team, and not just you as the leader.

    So, perhaps, a good starting point would be to assess and review the state of your IT assets (at work and at home), get a detailed overview of what is available to each member of your team, and make purchases or hire as and where deemed necessary.

  2. Get everything started right now

    Raising purchase orders or material requisition requests where applicable, and getting these fulfilled do take time.

    And, with several employees already working from home or not physically present in your business locations due to national or regional restrictions on travels, chances are the lead time required to meet these requests could be more.

    Getting people connected is generally considered not too difficult, given the types and the top levels of technologies and tools available today for online virtual collaboration and teamwork.

    But getting remotely connected people to be considered collectively productive and efficient takes some reasonable amount of time, patience, perseverance, tenacity, and efforts.

  3. Increase your engagement & (virtual) presence

    In crisis times, like we have now, more frequent regular productive meetings of senior management and leadership help establish effective crisis management as well as pull together key measurable objectives set out by the leadership team.

    So much of what some of your employees are dealing with are invisible. As a leader, especially in crisis times, you need to be as transparent as possible, and lead from the front, with a touch of empathy and sound reasoning.

    Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

    — Marie Curie

    Yes, each meeting should be short, usually no longer than 30-45 minutes but packed with clear measurable tactical and strategic objectives that can be tracked and used as sound basis for insightful reporting.

    As a trusted leader, your presence (or perceived presence) during meetings allows a calm atmosphere, and encourages your colleagues and team members to focus, involved, and participate in discussions.

  4. Recognise you’re human too

    It’s very good and noble to be present and available to your team and people that depend on you too get their respective jobs done.

    However, please do remember you are still human, and can only do so much.

    You may have family members that need you as well; particularly young children that wholly depend on you for your existence and wellbeing.

    At a time like this, almost everything will appear stressful and somewhat overwhelming.

    Remember, it’s okay not to be okay sometimes, even as a leader.

    If you aren’t feeling too well on a particular day or at a particular time of the day, don’t pretend that everything’s okay because the quality of your deliverables will suffer; and some members of your team will find out, sooner or later.

    As rightly captured by Carley Sime, “Leadership vulnerability is about sharing what’s appropriate in the workplace and having some boundaries around what is helpful and apt and what isn’t.”

    Leadership vulnerability isn’t about pretending to be a superman (or superwoman), a fictitious person without any limitations or personal challenges.

    Remember to always keep it real!

    Take good care of your own physical and mental wellbeing.

    Vulnerability sometimes seems out of place when dropped into the work sphere but it really is powerful stuff. Vulnerability, as a resource in leadership and within the workplace, can impact the entire culture and creativity of a team.

    — Carley Sime

    Take the time and efforts necessary to find that fine balance necessary for you to care for your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health, your direct family member, your work team, and finally, for you to take care of your responsibilities and commitments at work.

  5. Slap the table only when you are informed enough to do so

    Metaphorically and in many cultures, “slap the table” expression is generally used to demonstrate emotions (usually anger or frustration), to express objection to a statement or claim made by a speaker, or to emphasise a key point expressed in one’s speech.

    Also, the expression is generally used, particularly in military vocabulary, to convey closure, decisiveness, and accountability on a subject that has been extensively and sometimes tirelessly debated in a group discussion without end.

    The expression seemingly demonstrates that the leader has decided upon themselves to make the final decision on the subject, that the leader is accountable for the decision so taken, that the final decision taken is binding on everyone in attendance at the meeting, and, more importantly, that the decision is collectively understood and everyone is expected to align to the common decision on the subject discussed.

    Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.

    — Fred Rogers

    From time to time, particularly during leadership meetings, you will need to slap the table; believe me, it’s inevitable and it comes with the territory.

    But, as a good leader, you shouldn’t be in a haste to slap the table and you shouldn’t do that too often either.

    As a good leader, you should always endeavour to be effective in your decision-making process – be all-inclusive, ensure clarity of purpose, identity points of misconstruing or misrepresentation of collective decisions and plans of action.

leade your organisation from the front

Lead from the front. Lead with clarity and defined purpose.

Ensure that you’re always communicating with your team.

Ensure that you practice and encourage an effective decision-making and all-inclusive process within your business and organisation, particularly within your leadership team.

At a time like this, over-communicate is overrated!

Stay safe. Stay productive. Lead your team from the front.

working-from-home-during-covid19

10 Tips to Help You Work from Home During COVID-19 with Your Kids Around

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Many countries around the world are now in lockdown mode due to the global spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Several national governments have issued directives, legislations, and guidance that strictly restrict the movement and the gathering of people in public places, postpone sports events, impose stringent border controls, and close schools.

As a result, an increasing large number of businesses and organisations across all business sectors have adapted some sort of remote work (i.e. telework) positions, instructing their members of staff to work from home in-line with directives from their respective national governments, health authorities, and national security agencies.

In the UK, schools, colleges, and crèches (kindergartens) are effectively closed from end of day Friday, 20 March 2020 until further notice, except to children of key workers, as a response to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a previous article, I wrote about 8 key ways that businesses and organisations can manage disruptions caused by the coronavirus outbreak. One of such ways, as I’d written in the article, is for businesses and organisations to ensure that their employees are sufficiently equipped and empowered to perform their daily tasks efficiently from remote locations like their respective homes.

Now, you need to work from home and you’ve got your kids at home with you as well because their schools are closed. How do you keep your job productivity and mental health in good stead whilst working from home and maintaining vibrant and active family routines?

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.

— Robert Frost

Here are some suggestions and tips to help you excel during these unprecedented times:

  1. Make sure you have the right technologies and tools for remote working

    Well, to remote work at the first place, you’d need to have the right technologies, tools, access, and permissions required for effective remote working.

    If necessary and applicable, you’d need to have collaboration tools installed and activated on the laptop you intend to use for work related matters.

    Also, you may need to ensure that you have correct and active credentials to connect to your business network from your home, via your organisation’s virtual private network (VPN).

    For sound security reasons, and depending on network and remote work policies in place at your business or organisation, you may not be allowed to use your personal laptop to connect to business network.

    If your organisation has an active policy on Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and enabled the feature with the organisation, ensure that you have the feature enabled and activated on your work account.

    work from home

    And yes, make sure you have reliable and secure internet connection in your home. The last thing you want (or at least one of the last things you’d want) is to have your organisation’s data and information breached because of a possible weakness or flaw in your home internet network.

  2. Schedule short bursts – Max 2-hour blocks no more than twice each business day for work

    Whilst working from home generally gives you control over your schedule, you could quite easily run of time, energy, or even both when you don’t have a work schedule in place or when you don’t follow your work schedule.

    According to Jessica Stillman, researches over several decades have shown that the average knowledge worker is productive for no more than 4 hours each day.

    Your productive 4 hours do not necessarily have to be split into 2-equal-blocks of 2 hours each. You should be flexible enough to move your productive hours into whatever ratio is most fitting for you each day, as long as you work with set goals and objectives for each day.

    The need to set goals for each day and time limits for each task of the day helps you evaluate how productive and efficient you’d been for the day.

    Examples of time-blocks you could use each day include 30-minute, 45-minute, 60-minute, 90-minute, and 2-hour blocks, so long as no single block is unreasonably greater than 2 hours.

    The Harvard Business Review postulates that the average full-time worker in the US spends over 2.5 hours checking and responding to email each day. Perhaps a more effective way to manage this could be to check and respond to your work emails in 2 separate blocks of 30 minutes each; barring emergencies and critical incidents that may require your immediate attention – first block at the start of the day and the other block towards the tail-end of the day.

    How you distribute your productive 4 hours each day would, of course, depend on your tasks and activities for each day. For example, as a manager or a team lead, you could schedule regular conference call or video chat meetings with your remote team 2 or 3 times each week for no longer than 30 minutes.

    Let your work team and colleagues know you’re available and reachable. But you also need to be very careful about giving the misleading and wrong impression that you’re available 24/7, because that will most certainly lead to burnout.

    If you have 2 adults in your home, you could set up a mutually acceptable schedule so that both adults can take turns to care for the children. And yes, it’s always be very useful to help the children understand and embrace this whole new way of doing things around your home.

  3. Maintain a designated workspace in your home for work

    You need to set aside a workspace in your home, for work. If you’ve got a spare bedroom in your home, you could use that as an office, for example.

    And if you have no spare bedroom in your home or if you live in apartments, you can setup a section of space specifically for work. This doesn’t need to be a “permanent” setup; just the workspace you go to each time you need to focus on work matters and do your job from home.

    The need for a workspace dedicated specifically to work alone cannot be overstated as working from home can come with more distractions than working in a more traditional setting. So, taking the time and efforts to deliberately mark out your workspace within your home would help you minimise such distractions.

  4. Make time for play and helping the children

    When you are at home working, your regular workday schedules and activities will most certainly take a different form, even more so with your kids at home.

    Yes, you’re right, your kids are home with you! But they are certainly not on what we would typically call regular school holiday season.

    So, you all need to establish a plan that caters for everyone and accommodates the needs of each person. Think of it as an opportunity that provides everyone the platform to voice their views/thoughts and to be visibly and clearly heard.

    help kids with homework

    Collectively come up with questions that everyone feels need a response, and then collectively take some time to mutually agree on the best fitting responses.

    Share with your children what your new daily routine will be, what time blocks are for work, for play, for schoolwork, for home-schooling, for breaks, exercise, & relaxing, for meals, and for general family reconnection with each other.

    Wherever and whenever possible and reasonable, you should let your children to play outside, as this is a good way to help them exercise and dissipate some energy. Michael Thompson offers some advice on good times to play with younger children such as after their wake-up routine.

    Once you’ve all collectively agreed and come up with a plan, you need to display strong commitment skills and this involves dedicated leadership. And one way that you could do this is sticking to the agreed routine as closely as possible.

    It’s also okay to allow your kids to have more screen time. Several websites provide educational resources to help kids stay abreast with school curriculum and learning. Some of these resources are either generally always free or provided free of charge during the duration of school closure.

    These websites include BBC Bitesize, DK Findout, Audible Stories, and TeachitEnglish.

  5. Get some fresh air whenever you can

    It is very important that both adults and children are able to take breaks from schedule activities and get some fresh air whenever possible. This may be as simple as taking a few minutes to take a walk or if you have a backyard, taking time to play. It is important for both adults and children to mentally recharge during the day for emotional and mental health.

    Outside play helps children develop motor skills and contributes to physical health as well by allowing children to get vitamin D, increasing attention spans, and improving sensory skills according to Dr. Lund from Sanford Health.

  6. Stay connected to your work colleagues and children to their classmates

    Generally speaking, we all need to be connected to our colleagues, friends, and family to stay productive and not feel isolated. Without communication, it can be easy to get off-task or feel isolated.

    To keep in touch with friends and colleagues, you and your loved ones should feel free to use any of the several technologies and tools available to you including emails, phone calls, Skype, Teams, WhatsApp, Messenger, Zoom, FaceTime, Xooloo, etc.

  7. Set weekly goals not daily goals

    The reason for this is simple: working with children at home can be unpredictable, especially at younger ages. A child that usually takes a nap may be sick or fussy or it can just be a difficult day.

    You should stick to weekly goals and objectives that you need to accomplish. These can be broken down into smaller tasks that you can complete daily (checklists or schedules are helpful).

    Whiteboards with goals are also useful and appropriate especially if multiple adults are working together in the same household. Tasks that require lots of concentration can be made easier. Instead of trying to draft a whole report focus on paragraphs or points.

    The same can be said of children and homework. Breakdown daily goals for your children into small bits rather than one big chunk that can be overwhelming, especially at home where there are more distractions.

    Your children may also benefit from visual systems to keep track of their progress, and reward-type systems are good motivators to help children focus and feel accomplished.

  8. Expect the unexpected

    Working from home with children is nearly always unpredictable, and even the best laid plans can go awry. You should to expect this, and be prepared to explain the situation to your employer.

    You shouldn’t expect all of your plans to work perfectly because life happens – there will be distractions and interruptions. You should have the habit of regularly saving what piece of tasks you are working on your laptop. And your children should regularly backup their homework assignments.

  9. Set boundaries

    Once you’ve setup a routine and schedule, you need to establish boundaries with your children and your partner.

    Your children need to understand the boundaries of what they are not allowed to do when you’re in “work” mode. Your designated workspace in your home will need to be a no-play area and only used for work related activities.

    How can you ensure that such boundaries set are properly observed by your children? This means practicing how to observe boundaries with your children, to help them develop better understanding of the concept and expectations.

    Money Crashers offers some suggestions on how you could practice observing set out boundaries and rules set during office or work time with your children: “First, figure out which tasks you do during your workday that demand no interruptions, For most parents, this will be phone calls or video meetings. Then talk to your kids about what they need to do when they notice you’re doing this activity… Give them specific instructions.”

    You will need to firm and consistent with the boundaries set, but also patient; it takes time for children to practice and learn good behaviour.

  10. Reward good behaviour

    So, here is the rub: regardless of how many goals you set, how many boundaries you set, how many rules you set, and how many times you practice all these with your children, chances are that you children will almost certainly break some rules and interrupt some of your meetings and phone calls.

    Life happens, what else can I say?

    The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.

    — Dolly Parton

    One very effective way to deal with these is to keep track of good behaviour and reward the behaviour when rules are followed.

    For example, with younger children if a puzzle or game is started, if your children complete this before you check on them, you can reward them with a “good behaviour” book where they get a small reward or sticker. This can easily lead to even bigger rewards such as you watching a film with your children, going for a bike ride, making snacks together, having them paint your face, etc.

hangging out with family

Hopefully, you find these tips useful. But perhaps the most important tip yet is taking good care of your physical health, emotional health, and mental health. Don’t neglect yourself and don’t stress out over working from home.

This is very much for you as it is for every member of your family.

You all need to look after yourselves very carefully; eat right, get enough sleep, take care of basic hygiene, take small regular breaks, have short walks, call a friend or a family member just to chat, and sing aloud in the bathroom.

Wirecutter seems to suggest that you should try keep the vibe in your home calm, and avoid being on coronavirus news too much.

I’d say that I seem to agree with that suggestion.

8 ways to manage business disruptions caused by coronavirus outbreak

8 Key Ways to Manage Business Disruptions Caused by Coronavirus Outbreak

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Coronavirus; also known as COVID-19; reached a critical phase outside China, impacting the worldwide population and economic environment. The virus has spread in several countries and regions of the world, outside China, with devastating effects.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently stated that Europe is now the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic as very high and increasing numbers of cases of the deadly coronavirus are reported in Italy, Spain, and neighbouring countries.

According to WHO, more than 140 countries, regions, and territories have reported cases of the coronavirus. And whilst the number of reported new cases in China is falling, it is rapidly increasing in Italy, Spain and some other European countries.

As at Monday, March 16 2020; these were the official figures reported in several countries:

  • In Italy, over 27,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus, with 2,158 deaths
  • In Spain, over 9,900 people tested positive for the virus, with 342 deaths
  • Whereas in France, over 6,600 people tested positive for the virus, with 148 deaths
  • For the USA, over 4,700 people tested positive for the coronavirus, with 86 deaths
  • And in the UK, over 1,500 people tested positive for the virus, with 55 deaths

Governments of several countries across the world are taking extraordinary measures to combat the pandemic, including shutting down schools, restricting public movement and gathering, postponing sports events, and even imposing border controls in their respective countries.

After the coronavirus, nothing will be as before, we will have to sit down and rewrite the rules of trade and the free market.

COVID-19 has been ruled as a significant impact on businesses from all sectors, and businesses & organisations should understand, learn, and immediately provide appropriate & adequate response, to ensure business continuity. The global financial losses resulting from the impacts of the virus is estimated to be approximately US$2.7 trillion.

Virgin Atlantic recently asked its staff to take eight weeks of unpaid leave over the next three months, to help the airline cope during the coronavirus pandemic. The warning comes after many countries around the world closed borders or placed extensive restriction measures on arrivals.

With the outbreak of COVID-19, the potential of business disruptions is very significant. Businesses and organisations need to ensure that potential and possibly inevitable risks associated with pandemic are well factored into their business continuity and disaster recovery plans, as well as their incident response plan.

The coronavirus pandemic is very most likely already causing disruptions to business operations, and could affect contract performance.

Companies have to think on their feet and have crisis meetings, twice, sometimes three times a week just to try and keep up with the changes in government regulations and what they have to do to try and manage the situation.

— Dr. Adrian Hyzler

 

In a previous post, I’d written about how much time is generally required to conduct a risk assessment. We’d all agree that, given the current full-blown stage of the coronavirus pandemic, most businesses and organisations would have gone past risk assessment phase, and now in the phase wherein appropriate controls and measures are implemented and followed through.

With such a dynamic situation like COVID-19, it has the potential to be as disruptive, or more, to an organisation’s continuity of operations as a cyber intrusion or natural disaster

— Sandy Shen, Senior Research Director, Gartner

 

Let’s look at some ways that your business or organisation can manage and limit the impacts of coronavirus pandemic on your business operations and functions:

  1. Communicate frequently with your team

    It is imperative in these times to communicate with your staff. They might get concerned about their health and how they will continue to work as the situation worsen.

    You have to communicate with your staff informed news about the evolution of COVID-19.You must both formally and informally direct your staff to follow relevant directives and guidance provided by governments and health authorities regarding the matter, including how to improve and maintain good personal hygiene levels.

    Business leaders, department heads, and team leads should respond promptly to questions raised by staff and colleagues. You provide direct responses to their questions, escalate the questions to senior staff, or you could simply point them in the direction of more reliable, trustworthy, and accurate sources relating to the questions asked.

  2. Encourage remote working

    Several businesses and organisations require their sales team, support team, technical team, and senior executives to travel and visit customers locations across several regions and even countries; these teams are generally the lifeline of these businesses.

    On top of that, nearly all businesses and organisations have locations that several staff are required to be physically present at during business hours.

    In these times, however, you’d need to ensure that your staff can perform their daily tasks efficiently from remote locations like their respective homes. You may need to invest in internal communication systems or secure corporate Virtual Private Networks (VPN), to allow your staff to do their jobs from these remote locations from home.

    following guidance on very good personal hygiene

    Staff members who do not feel well, whose daily tasks do not require physical presence in business locations, or whose commute to work locations exposes them to potentially high-risk areas should be encouraged to work from appropriate remote locations.

    The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a special publication on telework security that you may find useful on this very matter.

    Following these steps would help your business and organisation to avoid a possible epidemy that could affect all your staff and cause severe business disruptions.

  3. Create a disaster recovery policy

    A disaster recovery policy will normally help improve the resilience of any business to unforeseen incidents or force majeure, including outbreak of diseases like the coronavirus. You should define your worst-case scenario and prepare adequately for it. You should take into consideration all aspects of your business, and all associated risks and severity of potential impacts on these.

    And as usual, your disaster recovery plan, business continuity plan, and incident response plan should all include your communication plan, RACI matrix, and all necessary information how to keep your business going.

  4. Sort out contingency planning

    All businesses and organisations; at this moment; would be expected to already have standards, backup plans, policies, and measures in place to address potential risks associated with the coronavirus pandemic.

    Such controls and measures are expected to describe the ways your business and organisation will respond in the unlikely event of incidents like the coronavirus pandemic.

    You would be expected to have conducted a business impact analysis, which will identify and prioritize the information system and the critical components to support your business operations and functions. The exercise would also help your business and organisation to identify measures that must be taken to reduce the effects of system disruptions and create contingency strategies that will ensure that your business will recover quickly from the incident.

    Every senior executive, department head, and team leader should have a clear role assigned, and should know what to do at every stage of the contingency plan. The actions should be specified very clearly and understood very well by your team.

  5. Be prepared to adapt your plan to current situations

    The global coronavirus pandemic could be described as uncharted waters for several generations. Consequently, it is almost very difficult to anticipate the course of events that will happen due to coronavirus evolution.

    So, you shouldn’t be concerned or afraid to revise or modify plans whenever the prevailing situation takes a different turn (for better or worse), and you’d realised that your plan or any parts thereof is no longer particularly fit for purpose.

    Be ready to adapt, improve, and communicate!

    This means that you should keep yourself well informed, and be ready to modify your plan as and when events require such modification. History suggests that you could do more wrong if you don’t take necessary actions that demonstrate your ability to improve and improvise if and when necessary. Be ready to revise your plans and communicate with your staff the reasons and grounds for these changes.

  6. Stabilise the supply chain

    Several severe disruptions appeared in the supply chains due to shut down of nearly all factories in China. If your business is affected by these disruptions, you may want to research into finding new suppliers from different countries or regions, to help improve the resilience of your supply chain.

    Perhaps more importantly, your business or organisation should research into how to effectively manage your supply chain for products that may register very unusually high spikes in demand during crisis times, if your organisation has any vested interest in such products.

  7. Respond to your customers’ new demands

    There are good chances that this crisis would will most probably cause a shift in your customers’ behaviour.

    The recovery from a coronavirus-triggered recession will usher in a new era in which how we live, do business and invest will fundamentally change.

    — Nigel Green, CEO, deVere Group

    Researches have shown that businesses and organisations that manage disruptions better generally do very well. The key reason attributed to such good results was the investment, time, and efforts committed by these businesses and organisations to their core customer segments and anticipation of their customers’ behaviours.

    To effectively anticipate and address customers’ changing behaviours, businesses and organisations are encouraged to invest in digital online platforms as part of their strategies for multi-channel distribution network.

  8. Make sure that you have sufficient working-capital

    For several businesses and organisations, expressing optimism about rebuilding and rapid recovery following critical disruptions and prolonged downturn to business operations and functions may be rather very challenging.

    The disruption and shifts will underscore that we live in a time of great capabilities and great promise.

    But to build and protect their wealth as the world adapts to a new era, investors should be revising their portfolios to mitigate risk and take advantage of the opportunities.

    — Nigel Green, CEO, deVere Group

    Knowing where, when, and how to get the right level of badly needed investment into your business or organisation could be the key differentiator in the next cycle of business post-coronavirus.

    It’s very heart-warming to know that several financial institutions; like Barclays, NatWest, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD); have announced emergency financing packages that they have respectively made available to businesses and organisations affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

awesome remote working

In conclusion, the rather disturbing and disruptive global outbreak of the coronavirus could potentially have several unexpected severe consequences and implications on our lives, businesses, and how we get on with everyday tasks and thought process.

But rest assured, some great outcomes from all the mess are yet still very possible.

In order for any business or organisation to hope, anticipate and look forward to great outcomes, therefore, its senior executives, leaders, and key decision makers should not assume the worst outcomes but yet be adequately prepared for the worst nevertheless; by putting in place effective plans, measures, controls, and policies that will help ensure strong business continuity the post-coronavirus pandemic.

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