Emerging From Lockdown: Planning For FY 20/21

We recently collaborated on a joint webinar with the HR Dept.

Trudi was joined by Brad Adams, Director Lower North Shore to discuss the implications for small businesses, their owners and staff as we emerge from post-pandemic Lockdown Australia.

The discussions centred on three key elements:

1. How well have staff performed through the Covid-19 crisis, and what are the ramifications accordingly?
2. Have business owners (a) got a grip on their finances, and do they understand what the outlook is for their business as they enter FY'2020/21, and (b) have they overlayed the human resources component with this?
3. Have employers taken the appropriate steps to ensure the longevity of their businesses?

How are businesses adapting to work-from-home?

Brad contended that following consultation with a number of his clients, the consensus was most employees had coped reasonably well with working home during the early stages of Lockdown, and that they'd witnessed improvements in productivity without the tyranny of travel to the office. 

Employers had responded quickly to enforced working from home (WFH), by providing their staff with the tools required to carry out their duties unencumbered.

Organisations were leveraging video conferencing technologies like Zoom to connect with their teams and clients, plus Collaboration software such as Microsoft Teams to ensure staff members were able to interact with one another in realtime.

What are the strategic implications? 

This pandemic has enabled employers to review the way their organisation is structured and consider optimising performance and output. For instance, are employees open to working fewer hours, to job share, to do shift work, or rotate between working from home and the office?

Furthermore, employers may pre-Covid19, have been turning a blind eye to excess fat in their business because they'd been making a profit, and this was a strategy that required reviewing.

Smart business owners when faced with this downturn, coupled with the time of year - EOFY and start of FY2020/21, have been reviewing their staffing requirements, i.e. their performers and non-performers, the related overheads (salaries, superannuation, et al.) and started making the tough calls.

How to make the tough calls in business? 

By doing the following:

1. Spend time on FY'2020/21 forecasting
2. Reviewing the current state of the business including fixed costs
3. Predicted performance and profitability - considering the revenues from the previous two months and those projected for the next quarter,

Trudi and Brad were agreed that these statistics would act as a clear frame of reference to determine staffing needs. 

Further excerpts from the transcript to come...

If you're interested, the full webinar has been recorded and uploaded to YouTube. Check it out here.