The Premise
Fear, worry, anxiety, and stress are common responses to real or perceived threats, the same holds in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused an extensive humanitarian disturbance, and companies are no exception. Organizations around the world are facing challenges in running supply chains and the workforce. Quarantines and travel constraints have led to fluctuations in business revenues.
During COVID-19, the well-being and safety of employees and clients alike have become eminent, and the need to ensure the resources required to work from home securely to run the show.
We are in an era of acceleration. Economy, jobs, technology, and society have transformed in the wink of an eye. It calls for companies to ensure Business Continuity while remaining optimistic.
Organizations at this time are in for a long haul! Adding data centers to demonstrating the challenges of remote work, they will need to manage it all while being optimistic. Business Continuity is all about how swiftly businesses embrace changes during the crisis.
Business Continuity allows businesses to restore and resume critical functions. It provides a layer of defense to an organization’s essential assets, like data, people, and reputation.
So how do enterprises create a disruption-free environment?
Foster a Flexible Culture
Today’s unpredictable world calls for businesses to foster a culture of optimistic, calm, and empathetic employees. Workers who have digital skills and like to work in a collaborative yet confident environment should be the norm.
The progress of any business at these trying times depends on how proactively it approaches crucial situations by implementing innovative solutions. The organization should recognize possible opportunities to adjust and promote new business models.
Coronavirus is neither the first, nor would it be the last pandemic to affect the world. However, it has taught us to be proactive and better prepare for such events.
Cultural Collaboration
The employee ecosystem should not be confined to just their workspace. It should be much more widespread and readily available to employees, like childcare and healthcare. If companies can knit all these together, it would build an improved social and cultural ecosystem.
A company’s broader ecosystem should include skilled, flexible, and niche workers, which would create digital solutions.
Agile Workplace
Telecommuting with data, technology, and security should be approved, based on the nature of work and the relevant professions. Strategies like these should be the new norm, recognizing the current scenario, the technology available, and the related infrastructure. A workplace that allows such flexibilities aligns with millennial expectations.
Address crucial issues across business roles by building dedicated teams that focus on solving unforeseen technical problems.
An agile workplace model enables employees to work across locations, develop new skills, yet be extremely productive.
Invest in Machine Enabled Workforce
Businesses should aim towards making the transactional process more data-driven to lessen stress on operations. With the technology that is at our helm today, it is possible to deliver efficient automation.
A machine enabled workforce will enable businesses to redeploy and reskill its employees and ensure uninterrupted operations. They are capable of learning continuously and would present an invaluable source for further scaling operations.
While machine led workforce can resolve transactional and repeat processes, the human workforce can concentrate on solving other complicated problems where machines cannot intervene.
Heighten Cybersecurity
Telecommuting is the new norm and gives you a lot of flexibility. However, organizations run the risk of cybersecurity during this work from home times. The COVID-19 outbreak has seen a massive surge in cyberattacks since hackers are exploiting the current chaos. It calls for beefing up cyber protocols to tackle compromised security.
Initiatives like lock screens, pop-up windows, two-way authentication channels go a long way in heightening cybersecurity.
Accept the reality
Disturbances, like the coronavirus pandemic, bring in an abundance of new opportunities. Use this time to renegotiate promising contracts with vendors, upgrade new skills, and invest in better technology.
Nobody can predict disruptions like these and the repercussions it could have on your company. Being disruption-ready enables you to respond on time and minimize the actual impact.
Closing Thoughts!
The best way to fight is to find a common enemy. For now, we all have one common enemy. COVID-19 is a harsh reminder that we are all created equal. Having a common enemy is a chance for enterprises to come together and to cooperate.
Realities are often harsh. The excellence of the human mind is that we can choose what we think of these realities. We can choose to believe the sky is falling, or that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
COVID-19 has created significant disruption worldwide, and it does not look like relenting anytime soon. It calls for swift actions by businesses while looking at the brighter side of things.
The trying times call for a mix of caution and confidence and a collaborative cum pragmatic approach to beat this crisis.
