Neha Agarwal is a Mompreneur, SEO pioneer and Digital Marketing Specialist with over 11 years of experience with brands like Jabong, IGP.com, Heads Up For Tails, and POPxo. In January 2020, she started a Digital Marketing Agency- Digi Acai. Neha thrives to work with small brands to contribute toward developing them into well-known establishments. Taking up new ventures is her passion. She aims to use the positive side of social media to boost well-deserving brands to their highest potential.
The COVID-19 lockdown offered startups a good opportunity to strategize a lot of concepts from their business.
During the pandemic lockdown, the concept of work from home got popular. Several sectors adapted to the change quite well. According to recent research, there are 12% of people would like to get back to the office instead of working from home. Many are not in favor of going back to the office for work as they got comfortable and felt safe with the WFH concept.
Post relaxation of lockdown startups is planning to resume work from the office with different strategies. Startup founders need to do a detailed strategizing activity. Startup founders should identify a few things that should be considered for employees’ good. Companies are going to notice changed people who need to be tackled in a very different way. Life would not be the same ever again. Companies will see the more considerate and kind conditions to deal with. It’s going to be a startup with a more personal approach that will win and not the one that concentrates on performances. The startup founders need to understand how to keep these things together, resume work in the office, keeping social distancing, and managing costs. We need to accept that the change in the way we used to work earlier and make work at home a way of life again.
Maintain Distance
We have to make sure there is no crowding at the workspaces. We need to ensure that only 30 to 50% of the workspace is occupied and plan which employees need to come to work in the first place, even post relaxation of the lockdown. Furthermore, other employees can continue to work from home. Also, rosters can be created in which a certain number of employees can be teamed up and can come in at certain times, complete their work, and leave. So all of these will have to be taken into consideration and planned out so that work from the office can be managed. The clarity is important as it will help the startup to cut the cost in various ways like maintain social distancing in a smaller space and lower cost.
Health is Wealth
With that, certain things are non-negotiable during this period. So every company irrespective of its size will have to follow a few norms to secure the health of the employees coming back to work post lockdown, such as testing, sanitizing of the office, have a backup doctor available during the working hours. We need to cut costs at the same time our employees should be our priorities.
Relax and Work
A startup includes a lot of fun elements therefore it should be included in the strategies by the founders. Every startup planning to resume work from the office should include games or sessions in which the employees can relax and retain their energy like before. Those sessions should be informative at the same time comforting while maintaining social distance like make washing hands fun and a way of life rather than a duty. These small sessions will encourage them to come back to the office and work with energy and a lot of fun.
Optimize Virtual Meetings
Industry events shifted to the virtual mode in 2020 because of the pandemic. Due to health issues, in-person gatherings were closed due to safety concerns. Heading into 2021, the in-person meetings could start to pivot back toward the end of the year, but it probably won’t go back to the way it was earlier. Virtual meetings are proving to be more creative than was predicted. Many startup founders understood that by going digital, they could not just save money, but could also reach clients they weren’t approaching. Also, fewer public gatherings will help us to keep our employees safe during these unprecedented hours.
Equitable Growth
The Post-pandemic period could prove to be profitable for some sectors. In India, financial institutions are concentrating on financial enclosure across the country, whereas in western countries, the concentration is on a comprehensive workforce and broaden horizons. This pandemic could be a channel of growth for some companies. The new startups coming up post the pandemic should provide better access to their employees in terms of medical benefits, financial plans, and other important schemes. This could encourage major societal changes and vital reforms.
Treat talent as your scarcest resource
Employees are the most precious asset for a startup. The fundamental principle behind this view is that a leader’s most essential task is to arrange, guide, and motivate a collection of employees to do something better. This means acquiring the right person for the right roles to construct value, and this is too imperative to leave to an opportunity. Talent should highlight every strategic option and other business choices you are making currently. Startups that fail to notice the importance of their employees will always miss the beneficial perspective of what their colleagues might have been skilled. They will fail to get the most out of the opportunities that inexorably arise from this situation.
These have to be well-strategized efforts to make sure that while we open up our agencies, we take every possible step to curtail the impact of a pandemic on employees plus making sure their well-being and safety.