Impact of COVID 19 on existing employment and future opportunities.
The world is struggling with coronavirus pandemic and the impact is almost everywhere. It impacted our lives, daily routines, businesses, and whatnot! It even forced us to do work from home. This led me to share my views on the impact of COVID 19 on employment here.
The tough situations around the globe are leading to the closure of many companies and the laying off of the workforce. When it comes to corporate businesses, almost every company is looking to reduce the costs associated with their operations by implementing appropriate cost optimization techniques.
Below are the options with the employer to reduce the cost and increase the revenues.
These may not help employees, not at all.
1. Reducing the workforce. Companies often analyze internal situations and reduce the workforce without impacting deliverables. They follow the local employee rules and compliance policies set by government authorities and may ask an employee(s) to exit from the company. A few companies offer severance packages before asking an employee to leave the company. Instead of reducing the workforce, it is better to look for the cost-cutting options in other areas of operational activities. Employers should treat their employees fairly and faithfully. After all, we are human beings! 2. Cut the real-estate cost. It is a fact that many corporate companies paying huge rents to manage their real-estate facilities to run their operations smoothly. Reducing the real-estate costs is a good cost optimization technique to improve the revenues without reducing the workforce. Companies should look for low-cost real-estate facilities with a good work environment. It should be accessible to all the required services like hospitals, supermarkets, and all other important services that we use in our daily life. It is very important to have some research on ‘how to deliver the work from home and utilize the manpower efficiently by offering work from home to the majority of hands. This way employees can utilize and enjoy the work from home options to balance their ‘work-life’ using the single brain?. 3. Cuts in employee benefits. There is one saying, ‘When you want to inspire your employees, start your conversation with employee benefits and all other activities that you want to do to engage and empower employee’. It may help the employer with better productivity. It is not good a practice to reduce the employee benefits completely and saving the money. If you feed employees well, the employer will get more feed for the future! 4. Pay cuts. This is another area where employers look for temporary cost optimization. Pay cuts may impact employee lifestyle and financial goals. It is not a good way to go for the pay cuts and it would be grateful if employers can pay some additional payouts to employees to help them to come out of this pandemic situation without impacting their financial goals. 5. Cuts in bonus. We all work hard to earn better! Employers recognize and give some additional payout to their employees in the form of bonuses. It is very important to recognize and reward employees to encourage them to increase productivity. If an employee delivers good to the client, the employer may win the new business and growth in their business. So, it all starts with employees and ends with the employee. Finally, as per my view, It is not the recommendable option to cut the employee bonuses in this pandemic. 6. No hike year. We love to see an increase in the numbers in our paycheck, don’t you? But employees should be with their employer and continue to give their best to help the employer to grow better (my assumption of this point is when an employer is not growing financially well due to some bad situations). 7. Reduce the unnecessary layers between entry employee to CEO. Kep the system clean and execute it well. Did you get my point here! Let me give you more description for better understanding. When you have a complex system with un-necessary operating layers that may lead you to lose hard-earned money without any added value from those extra layers. It is good to cut the complexity and value of the superbrains who are making differentiation at scale to grow in business. Skilled brains are very much important for any organization to grab the opportunities and execute them with better-operating margins. When you see good growth in operating profits that helps you to win the game. I hope you got my point here. 8. Look for the new business. When you do well for existing logos and help them with the best possible service from your end, you succeed and may get more referral business without spending more penny’s to sales and marketing. Adding new logos from different sectors will help organizations to lead the game efficiently. 9. Encouraging entry-level professionals across the business Educate and encourage young engineers to excel in business and seize the next generation of business opportunities. Young engineers know better what exactly the industry is looking for and utilize their ideology to deliver the innovation at scale. 10. Cut the non-billable resources. Every CEO likes to see their employees are completely billable and more productive to meet the client's expectations. Employers should look for the options to engage and empower their employees for upskilling and re-skilling on NextGen technologies. 11. Furlough This is another option for employers where they can send their employees on unpaid leave for time (a few weeks or months). This way employees will be on the payroll but not get any payout until they join back after the completion of the furlough period. Governments may offer un-employment packages for those who effected due to furlough actions from the employers. Company’s look for these options when they want to reduce the payroll to cut the costs for some time to stabilize the revenues. 12. Recruitment freezing It looks like companies are taken some cost-effective measurements and may freeze their recruitment process for a few months.
Employers may look into the below options to utilize this pandemic situation to get and grow in business.
it is always a good idea for an employer to increase the revenues and decrease the costs. The primary focus should be on increasing the business by adding new logos to the service spectrum. Below mentioned options may help an employer to improve the business significantly.
Providing discounts to retain the existing business.
Virtual business/work opportunities to get work delivered from the home.
Look for the opportunities that can be fulfilled by their existing capabilities
Be competitive and learn from the missed deals.
The leadership team should focus on delivery.
Attract industry veterans to lead the business efficiently.
Win more logo's.
Hire skilled and innovative minds.
Employees have the below options to help them better in these pandemic situations:
1. Upskilling
Upskilling will help everyone to be relevant in the industry. Learn better to earn better!
2. Re-skilling
This way you can scale up your existing skills to improve the capabilities to serve better for tomorrow than today. Cover all the areas that you are not familiar with. Engage with the best forum that can give with the best possible information on your existing skill.
3. New learnings
The world is changing faster and adopting new technologies almost every day. So, it very important to upgrade your skill with the best one that can fit into your brain.
4. Network
We all know that network is helping us to connect the people without any borders. Similarly, Try to engage with a network of similar skill people to excel in your career.
5. Help your near and dear.
Helping is a great activity. All we need do is identify the needy and help them.
Employers should help their employees with upskilling practices to efficiently use this pandemic time. Upskilling is very much important, and it helps us to be relevant in the industry.
New skills and valued innovations will help an employer to seize the next-generation business opportunities at scale.
Whatever happens, accept it and get a move on for a better tomorrow!
Hoping for the best and stay safe.
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Note : The above article covers the assumptions & expected impact on employment due to these pandemic situations.
