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6 Ways To Protect Your Business During The Corona Virus Outbreak

The outbreak of the deadly pandemic across the world is an unprecedented onset in the digital age. No other pandemic demanded you to confine yourself within the walls of your home before. The governments have declared a lockdown situation to deal with this unprecedented virus outbreak. But, wait a minute! How can you now go to work or school? How can businesses survive in times where their employees are kept away from workplaces?

The question that arises now is how you can safeguard your business in such a time as this? We have put together 6 ways you can help your business survive and even thrive in a time of crisis.

 

1. Plan for a crisis:

If you already have a crisis plan in place that is created to cope with natural calamities, you can modify it to suit the current situation. If you do not have a crisis plan to set into motion, we recommend that you come up with an emergency plan. You must ensure that your employees’ safety and business continuity is at the center of this plan. The framework of your emergency plan can be as follows –

  • What measures can you, as a business, undertake to ensure your employees’ safety?
  • What measures can you take to preserve your business in terms of operations as well as outbreak occurrence?
  • In case your business and employee(s) are infected, how do you intend to address the situation?
  • What platform or hotline can you make available for your employees to contact you?

protect your business during the Coronavirus outbreak

 

2. Initiate a Work from home policy:

You might have a work from home policy that your employees can avail in case they are unable to report to the office. This would have been easy as only a handful of employees would be availing the option while the rest hold the front at the workplace. The lockdown situation has increased the scale of work from home provision if you choose to extend it to your employees. So, to ensure that you leverage this provision successfully, we recommend that you create an airtight policy for crisis times.

  • First, go through your employee list and screen out those eligible to avail of this provision.
  • Second, check technical requirements that need to be extended for your employee to operate remotely.
  • Third, create and circulate guidelines of remote working among your employees.

protect your business during the Coronavirus outbreak

 

3. Ensure seamless communication with employees:

The best way to ensure that the top-down communication flows seamlessly is to keep the managers, team leads, and supervisors informed. Irrespective of the progress you have made in terms of planning and execution, it is always discreet to keep key people in the loop. If these point contacts are appraised, they will ensure that the employees reporting into them are aware of the business situation.

 

4. Keep all employees in the loop:

In addition to keeping the key point contacts informed, it is important to share all other employees with information that is relevant to them. Everyone needs to feel important enough to receive up-to-date information from their management. You can choose various platforms such as an email, or live/video chat to keep your employees up to speed. Ensuring a clear and discreet communication line with employees will also keep them from panicking.

protect your business during the Coronavirus outbreak

 

5. Set in motion a workplace cleaning drive:

Be reminded that the coronavirus lockdown will end sometime and your employees will report back to work. So, before your employees get behind their work stations, ensure that you fumigate your workplace top-down and sideways. Also, during lockdown as well as afterward, continue to educate and remind your employees to keep themselves and their surroundings squeaky clean. You can also provide essentials such as sanitizers and wipes to help your employees maintain hygiene.

 

6. Make the most of government’s relief measures:

The global economy has suffered a huge blow due to the coronavirus outbreak. In this situation, governments of various countries are doing their bit to help businesses operating in their turf survive. We recommend that you keep yourself informed about these measures and make the most of them. Some of the relief measures that most governments have extended to aid small and mid-sized businesses include deterring the deadline of income tax declaration, disaster relief loans with low-interest rates, and tax credit provided to employers. You can cover most of the business expenses such as salaries, debt servicing, and other fixed expenses, by availing the disaster recovery loans.

 

The COVID-19 has opened the eyes of businesses and economies in general to gear up for unforeseen circumstances such as these. The solace, however, is that businesses have facilities at their disposal to find means to survive during a crisis and thrive after it has passed. Get In Touch.