Author: Rob Ormiston

The post-Covid recovery has enjoyed more false dawns than an insomniac chugging double espressos. 

While any talk of green shoots comes with a lot of touching wood and warnings of ‘you never know what’s around the corner’, every business needs to plan – and we can only plan for the facts facing us today. 

So how best to hurdle the challenges facing us right now – and stride optimistically towards growth? We took a look at some of today’s most pertinent predicaments – and a few that are coming up in the distance. Here’s our five-step plan.

1. Teamwork starts in the boardroom

Crisis management, home working and greater separation between teams and departments risk disrupting our businesses. 

Research published this month by Boston Spa-based Oasis School of Human Relations, as part of its Resilience, Adaptability & Wellbeing (RAW) focus, reveals that frontline staff are nervous about the influx of people back into the workplace, and the implications for health and safety. 

As the results of the research, Is the Future Flexible? Leading and Managing in the New World of Work, suggest, managers may need extra training to help them support colleagues to navigate the uncertainty.

So, if dissent has crept into your business, it’s essential to face and solve it immediately. Employees are looking for reassurance and certainty. For them to continue to trust in the board, you’ve got to have a cohesive approach.

2. Build trust through clarity and communication

But it’s not enough simply to get boardroom buy-in – you need to tell your people about it.

As rules change, home-workers come back to the office and businesses flex and creak to accommodate employees’ expectations around hybrid working, there’s still a lot of uncertainty.

Although the changes are positive, they’re still changes – and that’s always going to be a challenge for some members of your workforce.

Examine the latest government advice for your sector and set out a clear Covid risk assessment and policy. We’re not talking about a dense document to bury deep and undisturbed within your digital dungeons – we’re talking about a colleague-friendly set of rules and guidance, communicated widely and well. 

Telling people what to expect when they come back to the office – or when frontline workers are re-joined by their WFH colleagues – demonstrates that you care about their health and you’re making it a priority.

Don’t expect them to absorb it all at once; new processes take time to bed in. Instead, create clear reminders and post them in appropriate places. 

It’s a good idea to compile an FAQ document, sharing the answers to any specific queries, and signposting people to its location on a drive, intranet or server. A central hub for knowledge is reassuring and employees will know where to go if they run into new situations they’re not sure about. 

Research organisation the Edelman Trust Barometer’s 2021 report on attitudes towards Covid is a US study, but the general trends are likely to be similar here in the UK. Researchers found that – perhaps unsurprisingly – trust in the government and the media has plummeted. But throughout the crisis, people have continued to report that trust in their employer is high.

With the amount of fake news and misinformation swirling around social media, many employers have worked with this position of trust and taken steps to calm nervous staff by providing them with relevant information or links to reliable sources, such as the World Health Organisation’s Covid-19 pages.

3. Be sensitive to employees’ concerns

Unless you work in a sector where the government has mandated vaccines, it’s not possible to create a ‘no jab, no job’ policy – and yet pro and anti-vax attitudes could easily become a flashpoint. 

One real-life example that came into the Northern Tonic offices was that vaccinated colleagues may be unhappy about being close to people they know to be un-vaccinated. 

Feelings on this run high, so it’s important to be open and flexible. Aside from the risk assessment and Covid policy mentioned above, you may be able to increase physical capacity through hybrid working, giving individuals more space. You could also look at improving ventilation or adding partitions, to separate employees more effectively. 

The Oasis report mentioned above found that frontline staff are nervous about the influx of people back into the workplace, and what that means for their own safety. Likewise, those who have been safe at home are anxious about returning to work.

Consistent policies and clear comms will help to reassure people and, as the study suggests, ‘managers may need extra training to help them support colleagues to navigate the uncertainty’. Managers, who have continued to be in close contact with employees across a fractured workforce, have become increasingly important during the crisis. Wise organisations will make sure their managers have the tools and techniques they need to thrive in this enhanced role.

4. Stay flexible

The pandemic has changed the workplace forever – and with it, your employees’ expectations of you. 

They may want to continue flexible working, and it’s up to every individual business to chart a course that works for employer and employee. If your workplace culture traditionally has a ‘command and control’ attitude, you’re likely to suffer a backlash if you try to force people back to the ‘good old days’.

Taking our own experience at Northern Tonic as an example, trusting our employees to manage their working day has been rewarding all round. If we had any concerns about productivity while people were forced to work at home, they were quickly destroyed by our colleagues’ impressive professionalism and productivity. 

So be open. Listen to individuals. And don’t try to cram the WFH genie back into the bottle. 

5. Plan your financial future

With all the caveats mentioned in the intro, it’s time to look ahead. With the crisis easing, the world around us is changing rapidly.

And let’s not beat around the bush: that also means fresh challenges.

Prices are rising, but there are steps you can take to mitigate them. A cost reduction specialist can help you cut overheads, often without cutting people. Our cost reduction partner offers an excellent service – just get in touch with us if you’d like to explore this idea.

Interest rates too, are likely to go up. But being on the front foot now means you’re more likely to find decent fixed rate agreements that will help you plan your cashflow.

A word of caution here to anyone repaying a Bounce Back Loan. The flexibility built into these might feel like a handy card to stash up your sleeve and play when money’s feeling tight. But don’t take a payment holiday unless you absolutely have to. You won’t get penalised through the bounce back scheme but (unfair as this is), if you come to arrange another loan in the future, a lender could judge that perfectly legitimate holiday as a default. So keep a payment holiday as a last resort.

What’s next?

We all share a heartfelt hope that the light at the end of the tunnel really is looming large. But if you think we’re going to emerge into the sunlit hills of pre-pandemic ways of working, attitudes and economies, you’re about to career off the rails.

Take a look at what we can do for you here. We’re much more than just accountants. We’ll help you to plan your financial direction and stay on track.