No, the sky isn’t falling.
It already fell.
The stock market is in total upheaval. Schools, churches, businesses, and virtually everything deemed ‘non-essential’ is now closed – or very soon will be.
The economic ripple of COVID-19 is reaching into the depths of every business and has left countless owners, leaders, and managers in a state of panic, grasping for strategies to survive these troubled waters and keep afloat. We’re all experiencing a collective nightmare of epic proportions.
But try to put the stress and anxiety you feel aside for a moment and time travel with me into the future three months to a year from now. Reflect on your brand, your image, your company’s ‘persona’. Not through your own eyes or even the eyes of a potential client or customer, but rather, examine your workplace culture through the eyes of the ideal job seekers you’d like to hire in your mission to rebuild and recalibrate your operation.
There will be a lot of people looking for work – and you will likely end up with more applications than you know what to do with. But while the balance of power in the labor market will have shifted back to your side—the employers’ side—your labor woes will be far from over.
Among the masses of the unemployed will be the workers you really want; the ones who possess both the technical skills and the work ethic (i.e., soft skills) you will need to get your business back on track. Those individuals are going to be in high demand and short supply, and they will have multiple options as to where they choose to work.
Before agreeing to their next job, those top performers will want to know—and it will be easy for them to find out—how you treated your existing workforce when these crushing waves hit your ship and you started taking on water.
Did you push your workers overboard? And if you were forced to do just that, did you provide them with a lifeboat, or perhaps an inflatable raft? And if even that were beyond your means, did you toss out a life preserver?
The Employer of Choice in a given industry or community doesn’t gain that reputation by paying the highest wage. They don’t produce a culture of outstanding employee attitudes or customer service by simply offering the coolest workplaces when business is booming and the bulls are raging. Rather, it’s what they do throughout the turbulent times that establishes their workforce culture street cred.
Make no mistake, how you are treating your current workforce throughout the coronavirus epidemic is being recorded for future playback by all the workers you hope to attract when this pandemic has ended.
Here are 3 ways you can make a positive impact in the world and secure your reputation as a great place to work:
1. Protect the health and safety of your workforce. Treat your employees as you would treat your children if they were headed out to a playground with a few sick (and contagious) kids. From providing masks, gloves, and sanitizers to offering a work-from-home option (if possible), prioritizing the physical safety of your people – even if it comes at a cost to your business in the short term – sends a clear message that you take care of your organization. That results in great word-of-mouth, a feeling of personal connection to the business, and an appreciation for being more than a cash register attendant. In the long term, it’s a no-brainer investment.
2. Protect their paycheck before your own. Iconic brands like Southwest Airlines, Nucor Steel, and Wegmans Food Markets are never left out of a ‘best places to work’ conversation. None of them laid off employees during the Great Recession of 2008, nor did they cut salaries. And the brands that will long be remembered after COVID-19 are prioritizing their workers’ financial needs above those of the C-Suite. Kent Taylor, CEO of Texas Roadhouse, is giving up his salary and bonus for the remainder of the year to benefit his employees. Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt hotels, and Delta, United, and Alaska Airlines are cutting paychecks at the very top to help ease the burden of their frontline workers. Big Box stores like Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods are actually increasing the salaries and health benefits for employees. While preserving paychecks is an impossibility in some sectors and companies, and many small- and medium-sized businesses simply can’t afford it, true leaders actively – and sometimes creatively – seek ways to provide any financial assistance they can for their frontline staff.
3. Support your community. While many of us are instructed to stay home, that does not render us helpless to those who are still out there serving us. If you have the resources, give generously to blood banks, food banks, homeless shelters, the Red Cross, hospitals, and First Responders. If you can’t give monetarily, find a way to pitch in with other resources that are sorely needed in your community (i.e., Is your janitorial storage closet stocked with rolls of toilet paper or hand sanitizers that could be better used by your laid-off workers or a nearby shelter?). While this should be done without any expectation of positive press or PR, it’s amazing how what you do now will make or break the reputation of your culture when this madness comes to an end. And it WILL end.
Remember the labor crisis you were facing a month or two ago when you were begging for applicants? That scenario will be back before you know it, and you’ll want your current employees to be bragging about how you had their back when so many of their friends found themselves drowning and forced to swim to another boat.
There has never been a better opportunity to prove that your business is a great place to work.
As the wise old axiom says: “This too shall pass.” But the memories of how you took care of your employees and your community during this incredible disaster will remain etched in their hearts and minds forever.
