Striking a balance between risking your health and risking your business

It’s slowly starting to hit home that the Covid-19 pandemic is going to drag out for months if not years. I was one of those who was too optimistic at the start, half hoping, half expecting normality to resume after a month or two of restrictions and hassle.

But we’re all starting to get a glimpse of the new reality unfolding before us. Pubs and restaurants that can’t enforce physical distancing look likely to be shuttered for the foreseeable future.

Or at least until a vaccine is readily available. But with a timeline of one to two years suggested for a vaccine, some businesses will never open their doors again.

The country doesn’t feel like it’s in ‘severe’ recession, but the helicopter money falling into nearly 900,000 citizens’ bank accounts every week is anaesthetising the public to the painful reality that awaits.

The Department of Finance figures make for scary reading. Unemployment is expected to reach 22pc, which is 50pc higher than the peak during the last recession.

When I was ordering my turkey chicks for Christmas 2020 back in March I thought it was slightly hysterical that people were asking me if there would be a normal Christmas.

Now I’m beginning to realise that it cannot be the same as any other Christmas. People won’t be flying around the world at any great rate over the next 12 months, so there won’t be that great surge of returning families and friends from abroad.

There will also be some wariness about having big gatherings. I’m not talking about the Christmas markets or corporate hooleys in the Aviva; just having a party of 20 or 30 at home will be something that most people will think twice about.

So the market for my big 20lb turkeys might evaporate. And if the family gatherings are all 20pc smaller, that’s a 20pc smaller bird they’ll be looking for.

The hope I’m clinging to is that people will be more determined than ever to gather around their nearest and dearest and celebrate in style.

The online flower sales look like they are going to keep trucking along for the foreseeable future, so I’m looking at hiring somebody to handle the huge amount of daily administration that has created.

Limitations

My little portacabin office down in the farmyard has started to show its limitations. While two people can comfortably work away at separate desks in it, maintaining physical distance of two metres and preventing cross-contamination between simple shared items like a stapler make it less practicable in these viral times.

Bringing in another employee poses risks to their health and to my existing staff.

While we are perfectly entitled to keep operating as an essential business within the horticultural sector, you could argue that by turning up every day I’m putting the lives of my employees and their families at risk.

This is the dilemma that employers all over the country will be wrestling with over the coming weeks. Push ahead and open up to stay afloat even though it poses risks to those involved? Or give up entirely to minimise the spread of corona?

I heard that Keelings have invested over €100,000 in all kinds of kit to keep their packing lines working 24/7. The big-ticket item was a pair of cameras that read each employee’s temperature when they turn up for work each day. If it rises a half degree above the norm of 36.5°C, that’s no problem. A degree rise raises a flag. If the temperature rises to 38°C you’re out until your temperature reverts back to normal.

Perspex dividers are another key feature being installed in production facilities and retail outlets that want to stay in business.

Big businesses will adapt and invest because it’s worth it. But for the smaller ‘mom and pop’ operations the maths is far less clear-cut.

At home, we’re looking at buying thermometers and checking staff

Fallout:

Darragh McCullough says the market for his 20lb Christmas turkeys might evaporate due to the fallout from the Covid-19 crisis: “If the family gatherings are all 20pc smaller, that’s a 20pc smaller bird they’ll be looking for.” daily. Allocating separate work stations to each employee might sound like a union rep’s dream, but it will create its own nightmare of inflexibility here when we get into the bulb harvest and packing season proper.

But if that’s what it takes, so be it. This is the small picture stuff. The big agendas over the coming months will be international markets for commodities that Ireland depends on: dairy, beef, timber and so on. That’s before you even start to consider the service and other manufacturing sectors that our wider economy prospers on.

The world is in a terrible state of chassis, Joxer. All we can do is keep togging out.

Keelings’ big-ticket item was a pair of cameras that read each employee’s temperature when they turn up for work each day