I think that it’s safe to say that the evolving situation of coronavirus, now that it has developed into a pandemic, is something at the forefront of all of our minds. Whilst we can’t control the spread of the virus, we can all take some practical steps to help ensure our businesses are well placed to continue through the disruption.
I’ll warn you now… this is very much a ‘how to’ blog! Whilst I love daydreaming and providing what others call ‘thought leadership’, the reality of the situation that we find ourselves in is that there are lots of things to do, and not much time to do them. I’ve tried to condense each area into some actionable steps that you can put into place right away, to help you weather the upcoming storm.
Your team might use some cloud packages, such as Xero or Quickbooks, but you may have some legacy server based software. If so, make sure that your team have access to your server through a VPN so that they can log in to any business critical software.
There are also some practical steps that you will need to take now to ensure that you have the right tools to ensure continuity:
This might sound obvious to you as a firm owner, but your team might not have the same ideas as you about what is expected of them as a home worker! If they have spent their entire working life in an office, arriving at 9am after a commute and leaving at the end of the day, they might find the whole process a little overwhelming:
It is likely that you will need to ramp up your management and leadership efforts over any homeworking period, due to the isolation that team members will feel. My strongest suggestion here is that you should look to systemise your check ins with team members, if you haven’t done already, and increase the frequency compared to how you would in the office.
Whilst you are naturally self motivated - after all, you’re running a practice - your team members may be very unsettled by the change, and might also become easily distracted by the lure of Netflix and their home comforts. If anything, you need to approach this as if you are embedding each team member into a new role, and give them the care and attention that they needed in the early days to get started in the business.
It won’t just be you that is unsettled by this! Think about how you will communicate with your clients, and make sure that you let them know how your team will be contactable in the case of any remote working. If you have a VOIP phone system, you may be able to get your office calls diverted; however if not please let your clients know the best way for them to contact you and your team during any work from home period.
This is also a great time to offer any additional support that your clients may need. In particular, your clients will be concerned about their own cashflow, their ability to work, and their ability to collect debts. You may be very well placed to help them implement some simple measures to ensure that their business continues successfully.
Any disruption can lead to a myriad of other issues, and this will be no different. My view is that it will be tougher to manage workflow, as clients may be hesitant to send records to you; and in turn there will be a knock on effect to work completed and your cashflow. If you have any financing needs, make sure that you speak to your bank sooner rather than later - the government have announced that they will support the banks in their lending to businesses, but you need to make sure that you are ahead of this before it becomes a real problem.
You will also need to think about how you will manage the capacity in your business. Are there any tasks that your team can undertake without distraction, should you find that you have more staff members than work to do? Now will be a great time to get on with looking after your number one client… your own firm! Take this opportunity to review the services that you are offering all of your clients, your pricing, and your internal systems.
Guess what? A lot of what you will do to protect your business from this disruption could actually set the groundwork for a new way of working.
A few years ago, I had lunch with a partner from a venture capital firm, who had a wonderful turn of phrase - “the office of the mind is the office of the future”.
If we were to look at designing an accounting firm today, it is unlikely that the first thing we’d do is find an office, buy expensive servers, and do all of the things that we did 20 years ago. Instead, we’d start with a blank canvas and design a scalable business that isn’t limited by geography or technology. During the next few weeks and months, we might find that we have some time on our hands. Why not use that time to think about the stuff that is important, but that we never get round to?