The well-being of employees should be factored into business resiliency plans.
This was suggested by Infection Control Specialist, Dr. The Most Honourable Corey Forde, while speaking at the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Powering Through Crisis: Effective Risk Management and Crisis Recovery Strategies for Business Resilience forum at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Two Mile Hill, St. Michael, this morning.
Dr. Forde told those in attendance that the COVID-19 pandemic forced numerous businesses, both large and small, to learn a “very hard lesson” about how quickly things can change, regardless of how well diversified they may be. “Your businesses may be in great shape now, but COVID painfully illustrated everything can change and change very quickly,” he said.
He told his audience: “You can never be too prepared…. It is smart to conduct your business as if a pandemic or other national crisis will cause another immediate shutdown because the reality is, that it may be well now but it may not remain well.”
The Infection Control Specialist advised businesses in their contingency planning to “consider the health of your employees”. “This is important. Businesses’ success and function depend upon their employees functioning at the highest possible level, [and] healthy employees equal good business,” he said.
Dr. Forde added that businesses should consider group insurance policies, noting that employees may not be able to function at optimum levels if the employees or their families’ health and mental well-being are not good. “Given the impact of COVID-19 … all over the world, this is something that you need to take careful note of,” he advised.
By factoring employees’ health in resiliency planning, he said: “You can help your employees get back to where they want to be, then you’ll get the outputs from them as needed.”
He also suggested using counselling and psychological sessions to help build morale, provide good guidance, and create cohesiveness within the workplace. In addition, Dr. Forde emphasised that there must be a renewed focus on work-life balance.
“This is very important within the workplace. A healthy, happy employee means better productivity in the workplace…. An employee with a strong mind is resilient and performs better,” he said.