Being sick is difficult enough, but being sick and dragging yourself into work is not only exhausting—it’s dangerous. And yet, many employees do just that to finish projects or hold on to valuable sick time. As an employer, what are some of the best ways to keep your workforce healthy and productive? Outlined below are a few simple methods you can implement to protect your workers and your business.
Take Precautions
It’s always been common sense to keep far away from someone with a cold or the flu, but now we have a popular new name for it: social distancing. It’s important that you promote social distancing in the workplace in order to keep your employees healthy. Find creative office layouts to keep coworkers a reasonable distance from each other, if necessary, or allow remote working options in lieu of requiring your employees to fill a seat in your building. Make sure you have plenty of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes available so that it’s easier to keep your workplace clean and encourage staff to regularly utilize these tools.
Stay at Home If You’re Not Feeling Well
One of the easiest ways to prevent the spread of disease around the office is to ensure that workers who are ill stay at home. This is easier said than done for many people, as staying home can be seen as a sign that they’re not fully committed to their job. Establish a company culture that supports remote work if needed, and make sure your business is equipped to send workers home when required. Cross-train your employees so that important tasks will still get done, and ensure that your personnel has access to laptops and video conferencing software so they can easily make the move home if needed.
Practice What You Preach
Like it or not, your employees are looking to you to set an example. If you come into the workplace sneezing and coughing, you’re setting an expectation that they need to show up when they’re sick as well. So be sure to set the same standards for yourself that you ask your employees to follow. Stay at home and work from there if you’re feeling able. There is rarely little that you need to do that can’t be accomplished with conference calls or emails, and most other tasks can be reassigned to another day or a trusted employee.
Although you’re likely very busy, keeping your employees healthy and functional is important to the wellbeing of your business. Ensure that you’re protecting everyone’s health and safety by taking these necessary precautions to reduce risk and encourage wellness in the workplace.
Here’s another great article: 3 Qualities Every Business Leader Needs to Be Successful
The customer experience is directly tied to your business’s success. Cultivating a positive customer experience will result in customer loyalty. Provide a poor customer experience and soon you will see customers drop at alarming rates. This is why it’s important to create a positive experience for customers as this leads to a sustainable business. With that said, creating a positive experience means showing customers that you care about them and their needs.
Keep Your Building Nice
If you want to show customers you care, one of the best things you can do is keep your building nice, especially in the winter. Customers appreciate an inviting facility that is nice, tidy, and comfortable. For instance, vestibules help your customers stay warm during the winter by creating a comfortable waiting area for them. Taking the time to create an inviting environment shows that you not only care about your customers’ comfort but improves the experience they have with your facility. Along with this, keeping your building nice helps accommodate your employees. Businesses should strive to create the best working environment for their employees as this leads to high performance. When you invest and care for your employees’ needs, they can better serve customers.
Create a Rewards Program
There’s no better way of showing customers you care than by creating a rewards program to say thank you. Ultimately, customers appreciate businesses that acknowledge and appreciate their patronage. This allows customers to save money on some of your products or services and will make customers feel like they have an emotional connection to your business. Not only that but this directly impacts your business’s bottom line as this creates repeat customers, which in turn, increases revenue.
Create an Opportunity to Receive Feedback
Another great way to show customers you care is through creating opportunities to receive valuable feedback from your customers. Feedback is important because it helps businesses understand the areas they can improve on. Even more, it shows customers that you are attentive to their needs and care about the interactions they have with your business.
When you encourage feedback, customers will appreciate your willingness to listen to their needs and your customers will know that they are heard. As a result, this will create better relationships between you and your customers and they will be more motivated to invest in your business.
Customers are a top priority for any business. When you show your customers you care, you are simultaneously improving the customer experience, which develops repeat customers. With that said, if you’re a business owner looking to grow your business, consider these 3 strategies to show customers your care.
Here’s another great article: How Your Business Can Have More Effective Training
Before I get into this… It’s important that we understand 1 thing: Our lives, our health, and the future of Small Businesses in America is far more important than the events that have been impacted by COVID-19.
I will leave the issues of health, social separation, and economic relief to the experts in those fields. Things I can offer some insight into are event-planning and communications.
We do a lot of event planning. So we figure it’s helpful to offer some insight into how to handle your events in these uncertain times.
COVID-19 has led to some drastic measures, and many events have been either canceled or postponed. Some of these events are critical for raising funds for operating budgets.
For these events, it’s important that you take the right steps during and after the decision to cancel/postpone. Here are a few things to consider:
The decision-making process
For social events, the decision is easy – cancel or postpone. Buy for events that make up a large portion of operating funds, it’s much harder. Your consideration needs to weigh who will be impacted, and to what extent. Can you still operate without these funds? Will your supporters attend if the event is at a different time? What other events will you compete with if you postpone to a different date? Can you even consider holding the event (government forced closures are growing every day)?
Remember to put yourself in your patron’s mindset. What will they think if you hold the event? Will your cause still be relevant after the crisis is over?
Something else you may want to consider is a modified event where social distancing and use of web/digital solutions replace the normal “gathering” type of event.
Either way – put your supporters first, and the decision will become clear.
Communicate with Stake Holders
Who are the main players for your event? Sponsors, venue, caterers, entertainers, etc… all play a key role. Communicate with them early and often. Get their feedback and ideas. If you are moving your event – find a new date ASAP and make sure all the players can make that happen. You want to postpone the event, not plan it all over again.
Also, make sure to negotiate down or try to eliminate cancellation fees. Most people are willing to work with you given the current situation.
Take the time to reconfirm your sponsors and ensure they are comfortable with your decision. They will appreciate the honesty. Maybe even consider adding additional value to their sponsorship. Without them, the event isn’t possible, no matter when you hold it.
Communicate with your guests & supporters
Don’t assume they know. They have a lot of things on their mind so it’s important that you are clear and concise. If you communicate early and often, you stay top of mind, assuring that your postponed event will have the same support later in the year.
You need to use several communication methods. Email is good, but consider adding social media and direct phone calls as well. You can never over-communicate, but the moment you realize that you didn’t communicate enough, it’s too late.
Update all of your event details on your website, social media, and ticketing services. This is critical – because if you forget, then people will be reading contradictory information, and that’s a bad look.
Create a responsible refund policy
None of this is ideal. You will have guests that simply can’t attend your event. You will need to have a refund policy, and you need to communicate it clearly. Outline the details of how refunds will be handled. Don’t specifically offer a refund, but make it clear how someone can request and receive one.
Be ready for feedback
Some people may not like your decision, and some will love it. Be ready for a back and forth with all of these people. Social media is a great platform for open communication. Use it to your benefit. By giving people the ability to speak with you, it creates an atmosphere of inclusion, and that breeds long-term loyalty.
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So – in short, consider your partners and your patrons, and communicate clearly and often. It sounds simple, but needs some serious attention. If you need help, RyCOM is offering FREE PR Consulting while the COVID-19 Crisis remains an issue. Hit us up.
