Building Resilience into Your Small
Business
If
you currently own or manage a small business, you’ve probably experienced an
extremely high demand or you’re preparing for the worst – to be shuttered by
law for a few weeks or longer.
In
either case, your business needs a whopping dose of resilience right now. Here
are four steps to safeguard your business and discover where you need to build
resiliency.
1
– Protect Your Employees
The
most important thing to do is to protect your employees. OSHA demands that we give them a safe working
environment, and the definition of this just changed! If possible, make it
mandatory for workers to work at home, and if not, get your workers protective
gear and make sure your workplace is cleaned constantly.
There
are brand new laws regarding sick leave; you will need to learn them and
incorporate them into your policies.
If
possible, try to continue paying your workers for as long as it’s safe for your
business.
If
you need to lay off workers, encourage them to pursue opportunities where
demand has surged. As of this writing, Walmart is hiring 150,000 workers and
Amazon is hiring 100,000 workers. Educate them to go where the demand is.
2
– Execute Your Business Continuity Plan
If you
are saying, “What’s a business continuity plan?” right now, you are not
alone. Most small businesses do not have
one. If you have any kind of disaster plan in place, brush off the cobwebs and
start from it.
A
business continuity plan helps you create a process that you can follow before
and after your company experiences a disaster of any kind. Many businesses have
plans to recover from weather-related catastrophes, fire, and theft. These
plans can be adapted to our new situation.
A
business continuity plan can have many parts. For our current situation, cash
flow planning can be an important first step. Use multiple scenarios, for
example, revenue levels, to determine how much cash you might need for the next
few months.
You
may need to evaluate inventory, supply chain, project backlogs, staffing, cash,
and other areas of your business to project how things will change from normal
operations. You will need to protect your various business functions – HR, IT,
accounting, operations, and administration – during this time.
Once
you’ve drilled down to the tactics of how you’ll move forward, you’re ready for
the next step.
3
— Communicate to Your Stakeholders
Are
you open? Closed? Changed hours of business? Changed the way you greet clients?
Changed your services? Added delivery services?
Customers and prospects need to know, so post a notice on your website
letting them know what your business’s situation is.
If
you do not, you will confuse your current customers and miss out on new
business. Everyone is wondering what is
open and what is not right now. And if you’re open, they’re wondering how
you’ve changed your cleaning methods and other procedures to keep them safe.
You
may also need to reach out to your suppliers to keep them informed of your
plans.
4
– Think About Recovery
What
will recovery look like when it comes? The good news about our current situation is
that we have more time to plan than we would if a fire or weather brought
things down suddenly. We also will not
have a disruption in electricity, water, or the local supply chain in as severe
an impact compared to a weather event.
What
we may not have in this case is customers (or we’ll have too many of them).
When customers finally start coming back, what will look different in our
world? Will we need to operate
differently? How will our services
change?
In
both the continuity plan and the recovery plan, we truly need to be innovative
thinkers. We may need to evolve our business model to be something else that
people want once we reopen.
Your
Business Continuity Plan
If
you need help building your resiliency, or even just projecting your cash flow
for the next few months, please reach out and let us help.
Learn
about building resilience into your small business so that you can safeguard
your employees and stakeholders by developing a business continuity plan.