When It’s Over! Preparing to Meet the Needs of Your Clients when the Smoke Clears
COVID-19 has forced an unwanted time-out on many businesses and organizations, while those providing essential services actually have seen spikes in their workloads. Everyone will be, or is already, doing things differently to adapt in both the short and long term. The meaning of “business as usual” has changed. Some companies, unfortunately, will be unable to continue, and others face a challenging recovery.
While the end is not yet in sight, the number of cases have started to plateau and decline in several provinces and regions, commencing a gradual lifting of restrictions.
So what now? What are you likely to face?
• Will you need to retrench and recover to rebuild your service or business?
• Are your clients, customers and supporters dealing with reduced capacity themselves?
Will you need to deal with a tsunami of pent-up demand?
Will you have to change your practices to meet a new reality?
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Whatever you need to do, it is wise to think about it now and prepare to hit the ground running.
Your organization or business is different from the one next door. Your strengths, challenges and opportunities differ as well. Here are a few ideas to consider as you plan.
Assess your resources
Which staff can take on more responsibilities?
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Newcomers—What can be done to accelerate learning, but not carelessly rush it? More experienced staff—Are there decisions or tasks you could share or delegate? • Expert or near-expert staff—What can you delegate to them to free up your own time?
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Use your time well
It’s a new day, and perhaps time for new routines.
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Communicate
What further improvements can you make to operational communication?
• Conduct brief 5-10 minute “here’s the plan” chats. (Some do it daily, others weekly, and it works.)
Schedule operational “issues” meetings with individual staff to update each other on developments.
Hold general staff meetings to keep the team informed. You can also have various departments describe to others what they do and how others can help them.
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Do you have SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)? Which should continue and which should change?
Tasks and work processes—Think them over and consider which could change, and if so, how.
Priorities—Do you focus on them, but also update and adapt daily, weekly and/or monthly as needed?
You may already have effective practices in place. The better informed all parties are, the better they can support each other, serve clients and rebuild.