Business in the time of coronavirus – what can you do to survive the COVID-19 pandemic?

In a fast-changing environment that requires a relentless series of quick decisions, business owners are understandably worried about what they should be doing and when.

How can you maximize protection for employees during the pandemic, and keep an eye on medium- to long-term survival?

Clear and concise communication will be key.

Be aware that advice will have to follow risk levels, and is therefore liable to change at any moment. But the five points below could help your employees and your business survive COVID-19 and thrive in the longer-term.

1. Caring for your employees

Make sure you’re up-to-date with the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and local government health agencies.

Staff displaying anything remotely similar to the known symptoms of COVID-19, even if it’s not confirmed, should stay at home and self-isolate. Those who have recently returned from a trip must self-isolate for 14 days.

Promoting cleanliness, transparency and remote working

Start with the basics: drill your staff to wash their hands for at least twenty seconds with soap and hot water on entering any building, before eating or smoking. In addition to increasing severity of respiratory tract infections, smoking sees more hand-to-mouth movements with a higher chance of entry for viral capsules. Wash also after coughing or sneezing.

Healthy employees with an infected family member should be encouraged to notify their employer immediately. Risk assessment for these cases is crucial, and you can find updated guidance on the CDC website.

Communicate the regime to contractors and other third parties, too. If you’re working from commercial premises, even with reduced staff and visitor levels, increase the frequency of office disinfecting. Use all available media – posters, WhatsApp chat groups, email and any other means – to make sure everybody understands best practice for hygiene in the office, and enforce it.

Across the UAE, both government and private employees have been strongly encouraged to work remotely to help stop the spread of the virus. Recently, Dubai Economy went further and directed all private organisations to establish a work-from-home plan for at least 80% of employees.

Most importantly, your employees will drastically reduce the chances of contracting and spreading the virus. Keeping them healthy will keep them working, and as studies have shown, remote working can increase productivity by an extra day and a half every month.

Make sure employees have up-to-date contact information and that everybody is familiar with your agreed communications channels, whether that’s MS Teams, Zoom, Slack, etc.

2. Protecting your business

Prioritize your critical operations. Create new risk profiles and contingency plans for your immediate risk. At this point, you already know you are likely to have considerably less revenue but the same fixed costs, unless you do something about it.Reducing costs and re-affirming client relationships

Deciding exactly what measures you need to put in place now might help your company through this crisis and reduce fixed costs.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) issued a resolution that outlined five areas of labour reorganisation that could be considered, but cautioned that any changes should be implemented gradually. The areas included: applying a remote working system; granting paid leave; granting unpaid leave; temporary reduction of salary; permanent reduction of salary.

In addition, MoHRE stated that businesses with ‘an excess of non-national employees authorised to work for them, shall register their data in the Virtual Labour Market System to enable their rotation according to the needs of other establishments.’

The free zones themselves are also putting measures in place so it’s a good idea to contact EER to get up-to-date information on what is available for your company and free zone.

If you lease commercial premises, speak to your landlord or agent. Some are offering to either waive or delay rents for up to three months. If you don’t ask, they may not come forward to offer it.

Keep all lines of communication open. List your most important clients, and establish regular contact. Create specific mailers for existing clients, keeping them updated. Regular and concise communication is key.

It may be possible for you to deliver your service with reduced or zero in-person contact, giving your clients peace of mind. If in a B2B environment, this may encourage clients to keep their own operations going, and will help you with turnover.

Looking at how you can add value for your clients during the pandemic may, in the long run, create loyalty. Can you go out of your way to help clients in a way that may only incur minimal extra costs? It could pay dividends in the future.

It’s also advisable to capture all information on expenses linked to coronavirus. Once business relief is made available, your COVID-19 expenses are already recorded and ordered, without the need to unpick months of expenditure and time allocation.

3. Personal financial relief package

A range of banks have announced packages of measures to help alleviate personal financial hardship. Under the direction of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the region’s banks are collectively offering comprehensive packages to ease clients’ financial pressures amidst the current uncertainties.

How can this help?

Due to take effect on 1 April, customers with personal loans or mortgages may benefit from a one-month repayment holiday, with no applicable fees. This is a fast-changing situation, but customers who have been put on unpaid leave may currently extend that one-month repayment holiday for up to three months.

In addition, cash withdrawals on credit cards have seen fees slashed by 50%, and some are offering interest-free instalment plans on credit cards used for school fees and grocery shopping.

4. Government economic stimulus

The UAE Federal Government has announced a stimulus package of approximately AED 120bn, while the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) has made available some AED 100bn in targeted support for the UAE economy and banks.

The CBUAE has introduced further measures such as increasing the loan-to-value ratio applicable to mortgages for first-time buyers by 5%, and is reducing the amount of capital that banks must hold for SME loans by up to 25%.

Helping the economy

The stimulus package will provide temporary relief from the payment of capital and interest on outstanding loans for all effected private sector companies. In short, if your cash flow or reserves are insufficient to sustain you without either laying off staff or failing, this can help to minimise fixed costs.

If you currently hold no debt, the UAE’s targeted support will allow banks to free up capital buffers, pumping an extra AED 50bn liquidity into available lending.