Consulting companies: Preparing for the post-COVID-19 return to school
- Relaunch prospects
- Prepare for an altered return to school, possibly in different phases
- Gain visibility into team planning
The 2020 school year, and especially the post-COVID-19 school year, is not like any other. Consulting and professional services companies will be exposed to an unprecedented economic context, particularly difficult to anticipate and master. The practical conditions of this return to work will represent a particular challenge after several months of working at home and activities interrupted since March but also the persistent impossibility of finding ourselves “as before”: remote working risks being continued for health reasons, team meetings in the office and with clients on site will be permanently hampered…
There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution for this return to school, rather a mosaic of situations and responses. The start of the school year will require creativity, flexibility, the ability to take a step back and question oneself in the face of legal, logistical, health and economic concerns. This risks calling for a radical transformation of working methods, relationships between employees but also the tools used on a daily basis.
Indeed, in addition to monitoring and respecting health safety instructions, new elements must be taken into account to return to work in a secure and strategic manner.
Relaunch prospects
First of all, because the 2020 school year remains a return to work, relaunching prospects and revitalizing customer prospects are obvious. It's about making yourself essential to their return and never leaving their perimeter: you have to stay in the prospect's head so that they can't forget you.
Different techniques exist and are implemented in all areas of the industry. The distribution of a newsletter to your target audience, attaching elements demonstrating your expertise, your experiences and the real added value of your service, regular activity on social networks and other media, the regular creation of quality content and relevant etc. are so many examples of techniques used and usable.
However, the post-COVID-19 situation remains unprecedented and requires special attention. Consulting and professional services companies will therefore not be able to hold client meetings as easily as before or participate in face-to-face networking events in the current situation.
Prepare for an altered return to school, possibly in different phases
After several months of quarantine, confinement and economic slowdown, the start of the 2020 school year presents challenges unimaginable even a year ago. Therefore, faced with this still unpredictable and risky context, companies will have to demonstrate flexibility.
There will still be work at home and less possible travel: little to the client, little grouping in the office between teams, many employees still at home (with all the additional difficulties that this situation entails)...
Firstly, clearly informing employees about safety instructions and new procedures is a priority in order to comply with the law but also to guarantee the safety of employees, potential visitors and customers. This also helps ease minds and fears about a return to face-to-face work. It is a question of protecting structures against real risks as well as impressions and doubts.
Links to the official guidelines of the European Union and the United Kingdom:
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/COVID-19/national-sources
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/facts/infographics
https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/health/coronavirus-response_en
https://oshwiki.eu/wiki/COVID-19:_guidance_for_the_workplace
Secondly, if feasible for your business, offer employees the option of flexibility, staying at home and/or returning to the office, including progressive flexibility, in phases. For example, more than 80% of employees at organizations like Nationwide and Barclays work from home and seek to gain efficiency despite this particular configuration.
Therefore, companies must transform alongside this flexibility and learn to manage a new distribution of tasks and absence management in a more understanding way and adapted to the lack of face-to-face interactions.
Thirdly, consulting and professional services companies will themselves benefit from actively listening to their clients and networks on the various concerns regarding the management of organizations and possible return to work strategies. Stay attentive to all stakeholders involved to build together the best possible work environment by connecting leadership and employees in this unprecedented context for everyone.
Gain visibility into team planning
A post-COVID-19 return to school is also an opportunity for companies to take advantage of these troubled times to convert them into an optimization phase with the aim of maximizing their performance. Thus, it is about gaining clarity and visibility on team management, planning, workload monitoring and resource management.
Many questions arise:
Consulting and professional services companies have learned that it is necessary to equip themselves with sufficiently flexible and efficient tools to facilitate visibility into the work of teams and to simplify remote processes, particularly when teams are located on different sites. In current conditions, the intelligent distribution of the workload according to individual and technical capacities, and the careful monitoring of production capacities in relation to the expected load is an essential element to better control costs in this uncertain period.
In this way, such tools make it possible to clearly visualize what the priority and essential tasks are for the start of the 2020 school year.
THE resource planning at work for optimized performance
Working remotely has accentuated the need for companies to equip themselves with centralized exchange and communication platforms making it possible to visualize the progress of various projects but also the well-being of teams by optimally allocating the workload. Management must have better visibility on the workload of its teams: who is available, at what time, with what skill(s)... resource planning has become more flexible like employees themselves: the LSE Business Review notes an increase in the desire to collaborate, to be flexible and quick to adapt.
Connect and exchange effectively
With the inevitable dispersion of the workforce at the start of the school year, a tailor-made overview, based on explicit and relevant data, is fundamental to monitoring the performance and commitment of teams in this troubled context. A thorough understanding of the various activities allows appropriate positioning and organization of timetable tasks over the long and short term. On the other hand, spotting holes in schedules allows them to be optimized.
Finally, employees must be able to report on a daily basis both for their performance and for each of their difficulties; and this in detail and to attentive ears.
Consulting and professional services companies are particularly concerned by these issues. Indeed, their work and exchange spaces can extend from the office to the employee's home but also, and above all, to the client's home. This delicate and frequent geographic flexibility leads to distancing and increases communication difficulties. Report on your performance, clearly explain your schedule, work in a team, etc. are becoming significantly more complex in these areas and require an urgent response.
F lexibility put to the test by COVID-19
A crisis, social or individual, like COVID-19, has a direct impact on the resource planning and work practices. The responsiveness of structures is decisive in order to deal with them effectively, quickly and in a relevant manner but also in order to learn lessons from each of these difficulties from the start of the 2020 school year.
Consulting and professional services companies need to invest in tools that enable and facilitate work from home and virtual collaboration among their employees.
These still unusual reflexes will require great flexibility on the part of companies and individuals. This involves completely reorganizing the management of resources and resource planning in order to attack September 2020 with the most impact possible.
The start of the 2020 school year promises to be full of challenges and challenges for consulting and professional services companies. COVID-19, in addition to requiring the application and monitoring of new health safety procedures, requires new involvement from teams from September. Beyond a traditional return to work, this period is also an opportunity to optimize the performance of each structure, taking a step back from the last few months remotely. Flexibility, visibility, connectivity are key words to prioritize in this post-COVID-19 return to school.
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