Workplace Lessons Every Entrepreneur Should Learn From the Pandemic

The pandemic has shaken the business world to its core.

With the global impact that the COVID-19 virus had, most countries had to take swift action, imposing restrictions for individuals and businesses that have taken a lot of time to adjust to.

But at the same time, the shift in how companies operate has actually had some positives as well. In many organizations, COVID-19 has changed the way people work for the better, allowing for innovative solutions and new opportunities to become apparent in the process.

And because of that, while entrepreneurs have had to overcome complex challenges, valuable lessons from the pandemic can make companies perform better and become more resilient in the future.

In this article, we’ll go over a few lessons that entrepreneurs should consider as they look at how to grow their companies in the eventual post-pandemic world. 

Technology Can Make a Huge Difference

One of the main reasons some companies were able to quickly adapt to the rapidly changing business landscape of the pandemic was technology. Today, business software can offer almost any type of solution, allowing companies to streamline processes and compensate for any issues that might arise from teams not being able to work in an office.

For instance, using employee tracker software, companies could stay on top of how employees spend their time, helping them identify any bottlenecks and challenges and offer remote workers better ways to stay effective when working away from the office. At the same time, these types of solutions were integral in ensuring that each billable hour or productive work was accurately measured, helping avoid any conflicts or misunderstandings with payroll.

Other tools like Slack, Asana, and Zoom became synonymous with the modern work culture. They enabled companies to simulate most in-office activities, even when most of the team was working from their homes. Technology was able to minimize disruptions and allowed organizations to move forward despite the challenges they faced.

The big takeaway from this is that with business technology continually evolving, there are always ways to make your company run more effectively. And as a leader, you should always be on the lookout for new ways to streamline processes, automate tasks, and make your employees' jobs easier and more productive.

Explore New Opportunities

It's hard to find any redeeming aspects of the pandemic, considering the global damage it caused and continues to cause. But at the same time, if there was a silver lining to consider, it's the fact that companies and entrepreneurs have discovered new opportunities, greatly expanding the potential for partnerships, talent acquisition, and growth. 

Something as seemingly simple as utilizing the Pomodoro Technique for moving through tasks can have a revolutionary impact on how much you are able to accomplish.

And it also created opportunities for sourcing top-level talent. Since it became clear that remote work is not only possible but even preferable to many people, today's entrepreneurs have been able to greatly expand their search for top talent, hiring from anywhere around the globe and creating opportunities that didn't seem feasible before.

And that's a good lesson to entrepreneurs about how it might be worthwhile to reconsider some preconceptions about how the business is run. You may discover that if you try out something different, it can produce incredible results.

Prioritize Employee Wellbeing

The shifts in the way people work had an enormous impact on employee morale and mental wellbeing. People had suffered from isolation, lack of work-life balance, and uncertainty about the future, all of which combined to create challenges that many struggled to cope with.

And while some of those issues come from the general anxiety caused by the pandemic, others can be impacted by entrepreneurs, which is why it's crucial to consider how the people you are working with are dealing with the changing situation and considering how you could help.

For one thing, merely talking with people about the challenges of working through the pandemic and ensuring that they feel as comfortable as possible is essential. Talk to your team about what they need to feel and perform better and be receptive to any feedback that you receive.

At the same time, try to ensure the people you work with that they have a future within the company, discussing their career path and opportunities that they might be most interested in.

Finally, make sure you emphasize the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance since it became a big problem because of the COVID-19 imposed restrictions and working from home. You need to ensure that your team members are capable of separating work from leisure and that working from home does not result in those lines becoming blurred.

Conclusion

Finding ways to improve workplace efficiency is a top priority for any business owner. And the pandemic has actually provided a few key lessons for running the workplace more effectively.

Utilizing technology, taking care of employee wellbeing, and being open to new methods are just a few lessons that should be considered heading into the future.