Page 10 - The Alp McNamara Downturn Survival Kit

11. Become more efficient
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Australia’s electrical retailers received a huge sales boost in February and March when armies of workers realised that they had to work from home and their technology was not up to scratch.
That was not the only surprise for business owners. Many discovered that those old work-based systems could not be easily accessed by remote people. Imagine your boss wants you to work from home when it is so difficult to simply do your job. Distractions are huge and supervision minimal. Your dedication to work might be poor.
Perhaps now is the time to look at all the systems, procedures, technologies and practices that you employ in the business and think about what needs to change.
• Systems.Thesoftwareandhardwarethatsitsbehindthebusiness may not be most effective that we could be utilising. To what extent does your business use the cloud? Can your people work from anywhere? Easily? Do your applications address your business requirements, or do you live with significant shortcomings?
• PoliciesandProcedures.InnearlyeveryStrategicPlanwefacilitate, there is a need to review or indeed, write procedures for important functions within the business. These are important parts of helping your people understand what is expected of them. Every day.
• Structure.Awisemanoncesaid,80%ofbusinessproblemshavetheir source in the structure. Who reports to whom, who does what. Take
the time to think about what you are trying to achieve, what structure fits that best, what roles and jobs suit that structure and then, what type of person fits those jobs. All to often, the role is crafted around the person rather than the other way around.
• Rightnow,thereispossiblyasignificantunderutilisationofthestay-at- home work force. What better time to get them to upgrade their skills?
There are several excellent on-line learning resources that can provide education and training to your people. Whether it is better IT skills, sales training, customer relations, skills specific training or some other learning that you seek for your people, now might be the perfect time to improve the effectiveness of your number one resource.
LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda) is an example of a very good on-line learning system that your business can subscribe to. Comes complete with completion monitoring. Can also be free from some city libraries. TAFEs and colleges all offer courses in many disciplines. Worth exploring.