Lessons from small business

By Keith Coursin - President of Desert Aire LLC and Chair of MMAC's Council of Small Business Executives

The suddenness of the stay-at-home order forced Desert Aire into creating a pandemic plan that day. Our first decision was to send 90 percent of the office staff home to work virtually. Seeing the high level of urgency that all of the employees shared to get this completed quickly was inspiring. Everyone was on board, including employees who would be still working at the facility.

Work rules

We were deemed an essential business, so our manufacturing plant remained open. We are fortunate that our manufacturing cells had adequate space to meet the social distancing rules. We added to our safety rules by mandating face coverings for all employees and stressed that these were not optional, but as essential as safety glasses for the protection of all employees. We adjusted the work week from 5 days to 4, which allowed the facility to remain idle for 3 days -- therefore allowing the virus, if present, to die.

Communication

From a personnel viewpoint, increasing the communication to all employees became priority one for me. Attending many webinars and reading everything about the pandemic so that it could be translated into terms of how it would impact each employee became an essential role. Keeping employees informed to reduce their anxiety worked well, and I received very positive feedback from them. As a result, we made a fundamental change to provide email updates rather than our traditional employee meetings.

Technology

While small issues in technology links had to be rapidly addressed that first day, our staff quickly understood that we could work virtually. Productivity did not drop, as all of the employees provided the effort to get their work completed on time. Using video and other software allowed the necessary collaboration to provide the teams with the interaction normally taken for granted when we were in the office.

Connection

This pandemic demonstrated how each of the employees rely on one another, not only for the work that we must accomplish, but also that we are truly a team counting on one another for the connection at a place that we spend the majority of our time. Many of the virtual employees look forward to returning to the office, but the proven ability to work virtually will be considered more in the future.