THINKING Ahead
By Morgan Wellens
How to parlay a pandemic OVID-19 changed the building materials sector. Countless l e s s o n s h a v e e m e rg e d a s t h e pandemic has unfolded and evolved. Two years into the public health crisis, business is gradually returning to normal, but it won’t be the same as before. We’ve learned too much about who we are and what we’re capable of achieving. In my experience at Nicholson & Cates (N&C), three takeaways in particular come to mind: (1) We, as an industry, were more prepared than we thought we were. (2) Sometimes, saying “no” is just as important as saying “yes.” (3) Building materials really are essential.
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Ready, or Not?
It really wasn’t the least bit funny, but we at N&C joked (in a laughto-keep-from-crying kind of way) that our experience at managing a business during a pandemic amounted to ZERO. We were pleasantly surprised, however, at our readiness to confront the challenges thrown in our path. Building products companies aren’t known to be advanced on the IT side, but collectively we had some systems that performed very well. Some of our suppliers and competitors, for example, are using live microphones in everybody’s home office. It’s turned on at the start
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of the work day—although it can be muted as needed—and the whole team can talk and interact just as if they were in the office. It’s almost like being there. While those early adopters were a little bit ahead of the curve, most of us in the industry came to rely heavily on videoconferencing. For N&C, there was a realization that we had been somewhat non-inclusive prepandemic in terms of looping in some of our remote sales staff on meetings. If anything, widening the use of video calls out of necessity has helped us to liaise and communicate with those workers more efficiently today. While building materials is very much a people business, videoconferencing, live mikes, and
n Building Products Digest n November 2021
other technologies helped the industry to see that it still could thrive in an environment without onsite customer visits, travel or trade shows.
Just Say “No”
Setting up staff to work from home may have been the easiest part of N&C’s pandemic response, but learning to say “no” to employees— for the good of the company on one hand and for their own personal safety on the other—may have been the toughest. N&C, and the rest of the industry, was fortunate to experience exceptional demand this spring as public lockdowns kept people cooped up in their homes and anxious for an outlet—such as renovations. The
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