Category: COVID-19

After Boris’ speech on Sunday, selected businesses are now allowed to open under the new HSE guidelines. If you are considering opening your Business work your way through our checklist to make sure it is the right time to open and that you have all the steps in place to make a safe environment for you and your team. 

1. Do we have a plan to reopen with ‘social distancing’ in place when our business is legally allowed to?

1. Do we have a supply of hand sanitiser available for all entrances and exits used by staff and customers?
2. Can these sanitisers to be fixed in place to minimise theft?
3. Have we done a deep clean of our premises?
4. Do we have a supply of face masks for staff? If possible branded? Contact Kiiwii. 
5. Have we worked out how to minimise the risk to staff by introducing social distancing wherever possible? E.g. spacing out seating, staggering shift times or rotas, placing visual markers where queues form to help people socially distance?

2. Do we have a plan to reengage with staff who have been furloughed?

1. Are they physically able to return to work? And on what basis?
2. What hours do we need them to work? And does this require formal HR assistance if there is a major impact to their working hours or contract? 
3. What training will they need to be safe and competent doing their job?
4. Will they need to be reskilled or reassigned? And how will this happen?

3. Have we forecasted the impact of social distancing on our business?

1. Reduced demand and capacity?
2. Cash flow? Turnover? Profit?
3. Resource requirements?
4. Parents of school age children may still need to be at home with their children?

4. Have we identified ways to reduce the need for customers to physically be on our premises?

1. Telephone and/or internet ordering?
2. Photos or videos of our products/services on our website?
3. Deliveries to customer homes?
4. Click and collect?

5. Have we done a risk assessment and implemented recommendations to minimise the risk to our staff?

1. How to reduce contact in our offices and premises?
2. Increased cleaning of all surfaces?
3. Education and training to staff on how they will play their part to keep everyone safe?

6. Have we identified ways to increase demand for our business’s services or products whilst still remaining ‘COVID-19’ secure?

1. New products or services which will be in demand?
2. Different ways of delivering the service or fulfilling the order or demand?
3. New channels to market? E.g. direct to consumers?

If you would like some help and advice about re-opening your business please contact jade@1accounts.co.uk

Running effective virtual meetings

Videoconferencing has been available for decades for larger companies, but until recently the majority of meeting attendees would be collected in a meeting room, with only a handful of people joining by video or audio. It takes effort for those in the room to remember that anyone is taking part remotely and the very word “remotely” subconsciously lessens their impact on the course of the meeting.

Very few businesses have had to hold meetings where all of the attendees are in different locations, so many people are only now learning how to adjust “in person” meeting processes to fit a virtual space.

Arranging the meeting

The basic setup for a formal meeting is very similar to meeting in person. As usual, you would circulate an agenda, details of when and where the meeting is taking place, preferably a minimum of 1 day before. This gives everyone time to check that they have the right equipment or software to join. The most popular virtual meeting services make it as easy as possible to join, but if you have any doubts, it’s useful to circulate joining instructions.

As host, and especially if you haven’t done this before you should have  a trial run to make sure you know how to do basic things, such as muting microphones if any participants have a noisy background that could distract from others. If possible, it’s best to set audio so that everyone’s microphones are muted when they first join.

Many companies have a policy of ensuring all attendees have video enabled. This may seem intrusive, but it does minimise the chances of misunderstandings if everyone can see a face instead of just a voice. It also helps add to the illusion of being in the same room.

If you need someone to take notes, nominate them in advance. If you don’t think it’s necessary, some virtual meeting services allow you to record the meeting, just in case you need to refer back. Remember to press “record” when the meeting starts!

Check how you appear on camera

Appearances still do matter in this time. Make sure that you are able to look into and through the camera when the meeting is on, rather than staring at the screen. Also make sure that your whole face appears on the screen, and the camera isn’t pointing at the top of your head or your chest.

Pick a quiet and tidy space for the meeting

But it’s not just how you appear on screen, it’s also what’s in your camera background. Given how quickly people were told to work from home and the restrictions on space, people are a lot more forgiving at the moment. But make sure you don’t have a messy room behind you, and try not to have washing – particularly things like underwear – drying behind you.

If possible try and pick a room for the online meeting where other members of your household will not be visible. Sometimes this is much easier said than done when you have children in the house. Particularly those of an age who don’t understand that “Mummy is on a call right now” means, do not disturb.

Starting the meeting

It’s best for hosts to arrive 5 minutes early to the meeting, and get the meeting started early. This allows time for you to fix any problems and prevents any early birds from assuming it’s not working.

Depending on numbers coming, begin by welcoming each attendee, acknowledging their virtual presence in the same way as you would in person. It helps to get everybody into the same mindset as they would be if they were meeting you in the office. Just as you would in a face-to-face meeting, ask attendees what they would like to achieve or get decided in the meeting.

It’s often a good idea to have a few open questions ready to ask at the start of the meeting to get people to interact. If you have more than 4 or 5 people in the meeting, it is worth using the chat box to quickly capture people’s answers and keep the energy up at the start of the room.

Managing progress

Long meetings are often counterproductive in person, so the same applies virtually, even if people are sitting somewhere more comfortable. If you have too much to discuss, break it into shorter meetings with breaks, or circulate explanations in advance and ask for input. This avoids what Harvard Business Review calls “collaborative overload”, where you spend more time in meetings than actually working.

If more than a handful of people are taking part, make it clear when people can speak, to avoid people talking over each other. How you manage it depends on what’s under discussion. A team meeting would naturally mean various people take turns to give updates. A more free flowing discussion would involve you keeping track of who isn’t speaking and who’s dominating the conversation. You can draw quiet participants out by asking for their opinion on an item, or for an update on something.

You may like to have a rule that if someone wants to speak they put a physical (or virtual) hand up. This minimises the chances of someone talking over you on an important point.

People can be braver at a distance, so if there are disagreements, suggest following up after the meeting, when people have calmed down.

Closing the meeting

Once you’ve covered everything you need to discuss, it’s useful to summarise any decisions made and confirm who will carry out any resulting tasks. Even in person, it’s easy for misunderstandings over tasks and responsibilities to arise, so it’s doubly important to check things in a virtual meeting, where audio and visual cues aren’t as clear as usual.