Managing the Virtual Workforce

By Generational Equity

03/30/2020

One of the new realities our economy is facing is the need to create a virtual workforce whenever possible. This has clearly become paramount given the events of the past few weeks.

Now more than ever before, business owners need to create nimble, proactive, remote work plans that allow their associates, when needed (or in some cases nearly permanently) to work as part of virtual teams, either from their home offices or other remote locations. The days of a highly-populated central HQ may be limited.

To help all of us effectively manage this new fact of life in the business world, we thought we would share a podcast from the National Center for the Middle Market entitled:

• Working through Working from Home

This 24-minute quick overview will hopefully help each of you to manage this new reality and maybe, longer-term, actually embrace the virtual workplace as a true alternative to our standard office constructs.

Keep in mind that even though the past few weeks have shown us serious upheavals in our economy and our social structure, eventually we will return to some form of normalcy. When we do, we anticipate that pent-up buyer demand will be strong and buyers will be working hard to acquire well-run businesses that have survived (and in some cases thrived) during the past few months of upheaval.

One key factor will be this: Buyers will want to know what you did to proactively enable your workforce to overcome the stark realities of “sheltering in place” and other mandated quarantine type scenarios in your local area.

If you created virtual networks, and if you empowered your associates to proactively come up with effective contingency work plans, you will be very attractive to buyers post the COVID-19 outbreak.

Virtual Workforces – Where Do We Go From Here?

So we are encouraging business owners to critically examine all aspects of how they do business, including where they require their employees to be when working. We hope that the podcast above will help you “manage” our new reality.

And keep this in mind: It is important to remember that prior to the COVID-19 (CV) crisis, the underlying fundamentals of our economy were thankfully strong and should give us the resources that we need as a society to overcome and defeat the current CV challenge.

In the midst of challenges, there are always blessings and opportunities. This situation is no different. History shows us that this too shall pass, and that when it does, we will emerge stronger than before.

The important take-away is that business owners that begin planning an exit strategy early reap rewards no matter what external factors are at play. We have never met a business owner that regretted starting the planning process too early. So take this opportunity to re-engineer your business operations (as Generational Equity has) and build a buyer ready business today.

The business continuity plans that we created years ago are helping us to keep our business operations functioning at a high level. In fact, all 13 of our offices are open and we are conducting business with no interruptions. We are ready to serve you and provide you with exit planning guidance.

If you are interested in talking with us about your specific plans, please call us at 972-232-1121 or visit our website, provide us with your contact information and we will be in touch.

Carl Doerksen is the Director of Corporate Development at Generational Equity.

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