The national lockdown has caused a lot of obstacles and stress for many industries — especially the media industry. While almost everyone has been focusing on the negative impact of the lockdown, there
are a lot of positive things happening that we need to take note of.
The lockdown impacted the entire world in such a way that companies had to adapt to survive; those who weren’t able to adapt closed their doors indefinitely. As the saying goes, ‘When one door closes, another one opens,’ which rings true, now more than ever before.
As a media monitoring company, WE took a big hit due to the lockdown, but that did not stop us from getting back up and keep on fighting. And, best of all, we've never been stronger!
So, what are some of the positive things coming out of the lockdown?
1. Remote working
Most companies have to give remote working a lot of thought, trying to figure out if employees will be productive while not being at the office and will they still be reliable. Due to COVID-19, companies were left with no choice but to let employees start working remotely.
Employers are seeing that most of their employees can work easily from home and they are now more productive than ever before, due to limited distractions and having an ‘always on’ mentality. Working from home gives employees more time because they don’t have to sit in traffic or commute between their homes and the office.
Without lockdown, employers might have taken a much longer time to realise that remote working is actually
extremely beneficial.
2. Opportunities for staff
Being able to work remotely allows for current employers to employ more people, since they don’t need to make use of office space. This is because, sometimes, the number of people that are being employed are being influenced by the amount of space a company has. Employing people who can work remotely allows a great opportunity for a company to expand internationally, as everything is done virtually and does not require travel.
Since employees can work from home, there is an opportunity to adjust their working hours. For example, if you are aware of employees who are single parents, you, as the employer, can talk to them about what times will work better for them. They might say working from 06:00 to 15:00 suits them a lot better, for example, than 08:00 to 17:00. You can then adjust these times according to their schedule, which increases job satisfaction.
Companies will also be in a position to employ disabled people, who might have been able to easily commute to the offices. This allows for equal opportunities for
everyone.
By taking a look at the needs of employees, there is a great opportunity to change the way people have been working and focus on building a happy and stress-free environment for everyone.
3. Everything is easier
To ensure that both employees and the employer are up to date with changes in the industry, they need to attend meetings, events and conferences. These types of things take up a lot of time and sometimes cost a lot of money to attend.
Paying for accommodation, aeroplane tickets and dinner all add up, but now, due to lockdown, all of these events are being hosted online, which makes it so much easier for people to join. Instead of having to fly to the United Kingdom, you can simply log in to the conference from your laptop and get all of the information that you need.
Companies have missed ways to make things easier for their clients, but due to the lockdown, they were forced to find new ways to adapt. And this has paid off for brands because consumers don’t want to struggle —they want everything to be easy, convenient and fast.
“At Newsclip, we’ve thrived during lockdown. All of our staff have gone from working in the office to working from home overnight — and things couldn’t be better,” says human capital manager Madelein Ludeke.