From COVID-19 to politics to protests, our world has changed a lot over the past year. Thankfully it does appear we can expect the potential for returning to some sort of normalcy on the COVID front toward the end of 2021.
While some things may never return to what we once knew as “normal,” let’s look to some more positive things we can leverage moving forward:
- Working from home is working. Over the past year, most of us have become quite proficient at working remotely from the comforts of home. After an initial learning curve, many of us have noticed a dramatic uptick in productivity and creative ways of accomplishing results in our new environments. As COVID gets more under control and the vaccine becomes available to the masses, I do believe our workforce will start to migrate back to the office, or more likely a hybrid approach where we will work from the office maybe 2-3 days a week and remotely the remainder.
- We can make do with less space. As a small business one of our largest expenses is work space for employees. By adopting a more permanent work-from-home or hybrid approach, many companies will be able to reduce their office space square footage when re-negotiating their leases. Employees that are required to come into the office may “hot desk” their work spaces with other employees on alternate days. I’ve seen some of our Government clients transitioning to this model with great success.
- We can expand our recruitment nationwide. Of course our other major expense is our employees. Not only have our overhead employees been working remotely but so have many of our direct employees. This has allowed us to expand our search for top quality employees from all areas of the country. Since they may not reside in extremely high cost of living areas such as Northern Virginia or the DC Metro area, their salaries are often far less demanding, allowing us to be more cost competitive.
- We can be team players. I see the continuation of the trend of moving requirements to established GWACs and multiple-award contract vehicles. Just a couple that come to mind for this year are CIO SP4 and Polaris. These contract vehicles provide the necessary access to the customers and their requirements and are excellent opportunities for the small business community to work with our large business counterparts to build the best teams.
- Better virtual conferences and meetings. While I do see some events opening up toward the end of this year, it seems most will remain virtual. Over the past year there have been great improvements to virtual event platforms, with features like breakout rooms and other virtual introduction tools. It’s hard to beat face-to-face interactions, but we have come a long way.
While no one can predict the future, one thing is certain – change is something that will continue.
