Stay 10 ft away! Don’t go to work! Don’t go to Church! Your life outside of your home has been CANCELLED…..until April 15th….and then until June 1st…….and then?
In this time of self quarantine, and creating personal space limits that make it hard to carry on a conversation, what do you see changing after we are back to “normal”?
We’ve already separated ourselves through our social media outlets that make it possible to stay involved with our friends and family without ever having to talk to or gather with any of them. But now, I can’t even go to a store, if they’re even open, without feeling like I’m breaking the law, and am going to infect everyone around me with a virus that I may or may not have, or become infected by all of the people around me. Now, I’m being told to have no social interaction within anyone, well maybe 10 people at the most.
How much farther will this extended time of seclusion and the recommended behaviors and habits we are now creating push us into a deeper state of isolation. Will we ever shake someones hand again, or will we just go around bumping clothed elbows with each other. Can you tell anything about character from someone’s firm elbow bump?
Within the workplace, how are you conducting internal communication, are you limited to phone, email, and other e communications? Can you go into someone else’s office? How much has been shut down, or off? What has been deemed as “non essential”?
While we overcome the obstacles of running businesses remotely, and with possibly less workforce and resources, take note of what is still working well. Take note of the processes and techniques that seem to be maintaining the same level of performance with less resource. Take note of what has fallen into such a state of emergency, or has caused other processes to diminish in quality or service level. Take note of how prepared you were for this to happen, and how well you were able to adapt or how ready your change management system was to handle this.
More importantly, take note of how your business and employees, despite possibly being separated and distanced, are coming together to keep the wheels on the bus, to overcome the obstacles, to keep your customers satisfied. This is where you will find the closeness, and effectiveness, of social distancing.