For ill business owners, virus is just one struggle
NEWYORK» When Chris Hyland caught the coronavirus, his ordeal went beyond being sick and exhausted — he couldn’t help his business partners manage the virus’s impact on their company just as the outbreak was sweeping across the world.
Hyland, his wife and children fell ill in March. Customers were cutting orders at his employee management software business, The Happiness Index. Revenue was plunging and the Londonbased company was forced to furlough 12 of 20 staffers.
Hyland tried to handle the crisis while also taking care of himself and his family but was so sick he had to hand off his responsibilities to his partners.
“I had to just lie in bed and accept it and turn the laptop off for a week,” Hyland says. It took a month before he was feeling like himself again.
When small business owners are diagnosed with the coronavirus, being sick is just one of their problems. Like Hyland, they can be too ill to shepherd their companies through the crises the pandemic created, a painful situation for people used to being their enterprises’ driving forces.
Some owners deal with the virus’s aftereffects months after recovering. Some have been afraid to let clients and customers know they’ve been ill — they fear their companies will be stigmatized.
Suffering through the virus has changed some owners’ perspectives about the balance between work and personal time, for their employees and themselves. Some have established more liberal policies about time off and after-hours emailing. Some are beefing up employee health benefits.
The virus left Hyland with existential questions.
“You start thinking, ‘what would happen if I hadn’t made it? What if I’m alive but not up to work?’” he says.
Hyland recently increased his individual life insurance, and he and his partners are considering key person insurance, which helps companies survive after losing an owner or top employee.