World over hope has started to return and we are getting back to work. Good news about an early cure is floating around and I am feeling more energised. I realize that before I jump into work right away, I must reflect on the lessons learned during the crisis and how I can incorporate that in my tomorrows.

Gratitude

This is the biggest reminder I had during the days locked inside. Each day I consciously started with a recount of the things I am blessed with, and I intend to continue this habit. I will incorporate it in my business by ensuring to express gratitude to colleagues, customers and suppliers.

Continuous Learning

Instead of twiddling our thumbs we spent time learning new things and realized the rust covering our minds. To make skills up-gradation a routine practice is high-up in my agenda. We do conduct periodic training, but opening the mind regularly to new ideas and thoughts can be done through a continuous learning program at all levels of management.

Hygiene Habits

I may have washed my hands ten times more each day than I regularly do. This has to continue and specially before meals. We learned how to keep workspaces clean and sanitized and this has to continue, a direct benefit to business would be the reduction in sick leaves.

Work-Life Balance

The joy of spending quality time with family was rediscovered and I will calendarise this to ensure that it gets the priority it deserves. The pace of work and other obligations cheats us from spending time at home, and this definitely is one big change that I need to carry forward.

Remote Working

I learned it is okay to work from home. If a person is sincere then more work can be accomplished working remotely, and we saw that in ourselves. An occasional request from a colleague to work from home will be so much easier to accept. Some may even think of reorganizing the workforce into field, office, and home. It benefits all, so that is something I am going to allow.

Cash Flow Control

In our bid to increase our cash reserves, we made a huge effort on collecting dues, and it paid off. The dues we collected revealed the complacency in collections and I hope to ensure the same discipline and effort to ensure that dues do not become ‘overdue’.

Video Surveys

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, but some older ideas are actually used when they become a necessity. We had been toying with the idea of remote surveys using video calls, but always shied away. In a lock-down situation, this was the only way to continue surveys and we found customers open to the idea. We are definitely continuing this and passing on the savings.

Lower Expenses

Walking through the supermarket aisles was so much faster when we were looking only for essentials. This made me realize all the non-essentials that I was stocking upon. While one cannot deny a few luxuries, but definitely the lock-down made us realize what really matters. I expect personal spending to rationalise further. I see this happening in business as well. In order to ensure business continuity we looked at expenses more minutely and were able to identify the excesses. Going forward, we see leaner operations with significant cost-savings.

Get back to work slowly.

It can be argued that because we had so much idle time on our hands we were able to focus on different things, and when we get back to work, we will be fighting for time all over again. True, but the restrictions are being lifted gradually, so we have the time to slowly include our learning in our routine.

The gradual reopening will help us weigh our new lessons more wisely and we may fully incorporate new habits in our older way of working

So are you going back to work the old way? Are some ways that are going to change?