Some businesses responded to COVID-19 with positive changes

Posted

There have been many changes and adaptations in the business world during the COVID-19 pandemic that have improved productivity and the quality of work, and that exemplify connection and support.

Kathy Gurchiek, online writer/editor for the Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s largest professional society for human-resource professionals (www.shrm.org), posted an article,“Small Businesses Get Creative to Survive During the Pandemic,” detailing the innovations that several companies have made in the last 18 months.

These include:

• Keeping employees safe in the field

• Adopting new technology, such as video conferences

• Going live with website chats

• Going virtual with team-building activities

• Adding breakout-room features on video-conferencing platforms

• Using chatbots for customer service  

• Training employees in new skills to support changes to business models

• Online troubleshooting and step-by-step tutorials

• Teleselling, a sales process that involves presentations, applications and approvals handled by phone

• Increased flexibility for staff who work at home, so they can manage their own time and create work/life balance.

The value of connection and support created by these changes is neatly summed up in an article at aish.com by Jody Berkel, titled “Lessons from Lockdown.” She writes, “Lockdown has brought with it many lessons. It was the year that we understood more deeply than before just how essential meaningful relationships are, and the more we focus on the WE, instead of only ME, the better we all do.

“It was a year that we truly counted our blessings and focused on all we did have instead of what was lost. And we learned that God has no Plan B, and that how we respond to what happens to us is where our greatest power lies.”

PATRICIA RASKIN, owner of Raskin Resources Productions, is a media host, coach and award-winning radio producer and business owner. She is on the board of directors of Temple Emanu-El, in Providence. She is a recipient of the Providence Business News 2020 Leaders and Achievers award.

Healthy Living, Patricia Raskin