With almost everyone in the country under a stay at home order, most businesses have seen their workflow slow down considerably. Some, have furloughed or laid off all but essential employees and are now running on a skeleton crew just to survive. Others, with more money in reserve, have tried to keep their staff with the hopes that better times are ahead.
If you are one of those businesses that are trying to keep its team intact until things settle down, odds are your employees have more time on their hands than work to do. Instead of paying them to do nothing, consider some of these options.
Education
If your industry requires certifications or continuing education, then now would be a great time for your employees to get going on that work. Check to see if your essential employees have completed the coursework that they need. Is there something you’ve been meaning to train an employee on that hasn’t been done before because there simply wasn’t time?
With more and more courses and training online, it’s a great time to get your employees working on some of the items that fell by the wayside when the business was busy.
Technological Upgrades
Have you been meaning to go to a paperless filing system and simply haven’t had the time? Did you have a plan to upgrade the security of your servers? Were you looking to switch software systems? Now might be the best time to do any or all of these items.
Provided they’re still attainable within your current budget constraints, then upgrading technology during slow times is a great plan. That way you’re not working out the bugs when times are busy.
Analyze Your Marketing Strategy
This is one of those things that there never seems to be enough time for, which is why this is the perfect time for it. Look at all of your marketing materials, do they still hold or do they need to be updated? Are your social media profiles up to date with the proper logos, links to your webpage, etc.? Do your automated emails still have a proper address and phone number on them?
If you have a blog, now is a great time to do a full analysis. Look at your best performing posts and see if there are ways to update them. Is the information within the post still relevant, or have there been changes in the way the industry thinks? Are all the links within the posts still good or do they lead to dead ends? Can you add a more modern look to the post? Changes like these can improve the traffic that your website receives from search engines like Google, Yahoo! and more.
Hold a Group Chat
Schedule a Zoom or a WebEx meeting with your team and then talk about what’s going right with the business and what can be improved. Now is a great time for self-reflection within the business. What are you doing right? What can be improved? What needs to change altogether?
Get everyone’s creative juices flowing and hopefully, you’ll streamline your workflow in the process.
Check-in with Clients
Show your clients that you care. Check-in with them. See how they’re doing. This is not a sales call, but a check-in. Make sure that they’re safe, healthy, and that their family is as well. Be there for them. People tend to remember the businesses that are more worried about their customers’ well-being than they are about personal profits.
If you are looking for ways to keep your employees but work them remotely, then check out this previous post.
Written by Erika Towne