Responsible employer, what do you do?
Are you a business leader wondering how to avoid adding to the 2.8 million unemployed.
An anecdote from my weekend with my old car
I spent 5 hours on Sunday morning trying to fix the indicator flashers on my old car, albeit unsuccessfully even though I had workshop manuals/wiring diagrams. Frustrating, and yet I had the knowledge that Bob the local Auto-Electrician lived 500 metres away from my garage door. It took a socially distanced Bob one hour following my telephone call for him to arrive at my garage, get the flashers working and fix the brake lights that had also now failed due to my tinkering with other wires in my vain hope of fixing the flasher fault myself. Bob didn’t once look at the diagrams from the workshop books that had strained my eyes for hours, Bob used his knowledge and experience to pull out all ten wires from the old relay, to try different combinations of wires touched together until we had flasher light from each corner of the car, at which point the soldering iron fixed the correct combinations together and the old relay became redundant and removed from the car. True story.
Another True Story - UK Unemployment Rate reached 2.8% in May 2020 and looks set to rise higher over the coming months. It is without doubt that business leaders are wondering (as am I) :-
What should be done to maintain jobs for the team (not to be the one responsible for increasing the 2.8% figure (let alone the considerations being made of the further impacts on family life, mental health, etc.)
How much the Company’s revenue will be for the rest of this, the future 3 or 5 year plan; calculating the effect of the current team structure on the cashflow, and ultimately testing options for changes of the operating model to achieve balance and ultimately stay afloat (projections that finance managers make many times yet never ever in such unprecedented times as these).
Who is in the Business to lead with the balanced management that this situation requires; who has a style/skills to suit the task at hand and how does the work get completed (delicate empathy with the situation yet pragmatic to the needs of the Customer:Colleague:Company ratio)
Many business leaders will be thinking that remodelling operating models is a task for the usual team to complete.
However, this time is a different time; an unusual time that requires unusual thinking; an exceptional time that needs exceptional people who may not be the usual team(remodelling following Covid-19s unprecedented interruption to normal Society, said to be responsible for taking us into the biggest Recession ever experienced).
Where are those exceptional individuals found in the company - possibly not in the usual places, possibly in other departments where they have been a silent yet important player, definitely found in an external supplier who will have a cross sector range of remodelling experiences in a diverse team of associates with story’s to draw from in supporting the business through these unprecedented times.
Please contact me if you are in need of a Bob too.