How Businesses Should Be Moving Forward
Now that the main transition has ended, businesses have turned their attention to what’s to come.
“People working from home more often is going to be the norm,” said Pflieger. “Some people might be 100 percent remote, and some companies have been doing that, but it’s been at different levels at different companies.”
Some businesses want to take advantage of fewer onsite employees to cut down on office space, rotating workers in and out of the office in shifts. But they’re learning that the change will affect more of their operations than originally thought.
“We usually have a desk phone,” Pflieger offered as an example. “But one of the things we’re finding is we can’t have a handset on the phone right now, because they can’t sanitize them. You can’t use any kind of sanitizer on the handset. So we’re going to take the handsets off all the phones and replace them with headsets.”
One thing became abundantly clear: Ensuring the ability to collaborate can ensure business continuity, and it’s possibly the most important aspect of operations for organizations to center their plans around.
“Think of a holistic strategy around collaboration, and what you can do to make it easier for us to work together at times like this,” said Pflieger.
The pandemic caught many, if not most, off-guard. But focusing on planning early can help organizations be ready for another unexpected event.
“When we sent everybody home, I have to say we had about two weeks of a little bit of pain with performance while we were waiting for the new stuff to come in,” said Pflieger. “So I think the lesson learned is start sooner if you can, and always prepare for the worst case scenario.”
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