Running a business; some silver linings in grim times

I run a modest sized, but successful marketing and media relations business employing c20 people working for demanding financial services clients.

I like to think my employees are bright, motivated and team centric. I like to think they are committed to going the extra mile for clients and, in turn, committed to the success of the company they work for. The management team’s role is to ensure they benefit from this success.

We have formal and informal processes to ensure the quality of the work we deliver is as high as possible. We also have processes in place to ensure our employees develop through structured and on-the job training and that they are as positive as they can be about their working environment.

But how do we always know this is the case? For all the internal and external reporting, and feedback from clients, we are, like any other people-business, sometimes fallible.

And yet, in these grim coronavirus times, relying wholly on home working, there is constant evidence that we have mostly got it right.

Before the shut-down all employees worked hard to ensure that we and, where we could help, our clients would be as ready as we could be about what was to come. There was banter; but there was also immense caring about the pressures faced by individuals with vulnerable friends, relatives and partners based here or overseas at this time.

The remote working practices put in place are humming with activity and have ironically brought the team even closer together as they coordinate activities. And the work undertaken for clients, who rightly remain busy and demanding in these challenging times, is more visible as all sorts of remote working channels and, of course, emails, fill up with action points.

There are two slightly surprising, amusing sides to all this. Firstly, commentators say that when this is all over, working practices will never be the same again. I am not so sure. The stress of ensuring the backdrop to any video conferencing from home is sufficiently flattering is taking its toll… And secondly, as one colleagues opined; ‘what my partner says to me to make me laugh at 8pm at night is less funny at 11 in the morning’…Office working beckons and, on current evidence, will be embraced enthusiastically, when this period is over.

Like many other businesses, we have to, and are, working as a single team for each other and our clients. Humour still prevails and that keeps us sane. We are still having our end of month office drinks ‘virtually’ this afternoon…The work is going well and everybody visibly cares about getting our Company and our clients through these grim times.

So, whilst the news and our personal experiences will no doubt threaten our well-being, spare a thought for some positive consequences coming out of adversity; those silver linings. And keep as safe and well as you can be.