As with the rest of the world, Technalink found itself grappling with the challenges of 2020 and a global pandemic that didn’t care about gender, race, creed, or class. It is a historical period and one of the first major global-scale crises of the 21st century, demanding that everyone find new ways to adapt to keep going.
Many businesses, like the ones by Bob Bratt, answered the call, integrating new workflows and reducing the chances of infection and possible illness and death among staff. If you ran a business in 2020 and tried to stay true to the principles of compassionate leadership, you had to make changes too. We all learned lessons from 2020, and these are perhaps the most important ones we should never forget.
Long Term Thinking Matters
Nowhere was this truism more closely demonstrated than in how companies and countries handled the pandemic. Those groups concerned only with an immediate crisis found themselves dealing with lockdowns, only to open up the moment numbers dropped, see infections rising, and be forced to impose a lockdown again.
Organizations that were able to look at the big picture tended to fare better. Instead of simply shooting for immediate results, then being forced to repeat actions at higher cost and time, some companies and countries took a “no pain, no gain” approach and utilized solutions with more permanent results at the expense of tougher initial implementation. It seems painful to enact stricter, long-term solutions, but if you only have to do it once, that’s preferable to multiple measures constantly repeated.
Healthy People Mean Healthy Business
The pandemic drove home just how vital compassionate leadership can be. If you care about the people who work for you, you are also caring about your business. People who ignored work from home measures or ignored health recommendations as costing too much money, time or effort, eventually paid for their lack of concern with infections and even reputations for being centers for spreading.
Those who cared about their staff’s welfare were also looking after the interest of their own business. Some managers failed to anticipate that a pandemic doesn’t care about management techniques, only health measures. Trying to cheat on employees’ health measures inevitably had a domino effect passed on to clients and customers.
There Are Other Ways To Work
For many businesses, the crisis of COVID-19 jump-started a new willingness—because of necessity—to find other ways to work. The popular 9-5 workday in an open plan office was a recipe for disaster if it meant proximity to people who could be potential coronavirus carriers.
Different people have different ways of working. Some measures, such as working from home, actually had little impact on workflow. In some cases, they even improved workflow. Some businesses are now considered permanent work from home circumstances for specific occupations. It is a safer measure healthwise, but in some cases, it also more cost-effective and more efficient for some types of work.
Stress Takes A Toll
While stress is an accepted occupational hazard in most jobs, it went to new levels in 2020. The endurance of that stress took on new importance. Compassionate leadership was also about recognizing the pandemic’s unique stressors and having the care and willingness to deal with it both personally and professionally with other staff.
This is where meditation techniques and aids like prayer beads became effective ways to take time out and destress for a few minutes before resuming work and responsibilities. Now that we’ve turned a corner on the pandemic itself, it’s essential to recognize these measures have benefits beyond just managing a global viral outbreak.
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