Impact of the pandemic on the norm
India has had a rather successful campaign in its battle against the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country. As of writing this, there have been over a hundred and twenty-four thousand confirmed cases in India and although the rise is slow, the cases are still piling up steadily- it is inevitable that some lives will be lost in this duration.
With the enemy invisible and currently with a strategy to stall but not defeat, we are fighting a desperate fight and so every step we take is crucial and must be well thought out and rational. The consequences of mistakes can be grave- at this moment leadership and effective management come through and shine.
Not just in a pandemic, management skills can come in handy in all hardships in life if they’re applied well enough. The paramount validation of this fact has been India’s success in slowing down the spread so far. There’s plenty of ways where management skills can be applied to solve problems that are otherwise more challenging than they could be.
The everyday norm, getting up, going through a schedule, going back to sleep has been turned upside down for people and they’re struggling to find stability in an anxiety-inducing and panic-ridden state of affairs. This is no time to flock around foolishly but to win the challenge of making something worthwhile of this situation and getting out of it with the least possible damage.
Handling the workforce in a tricky setup
The pandemic has managed to confine the majority of this world’s working population in their homes, to be working online until the situation improves. While attempts have been made to restart the economy with 30% employees in the office and strict social distancing policy- it is not enough to keep the things moving, and so the world will slave away at computer screens for an indefinite time.
Effective management of employees is hard enough when it is in office when they aren’t physically present- it takes away a certain element of control from the management. In such a situation, if the person of authority is equipped with good communication and effective management skills then perhaps they can build better trust between the members of their team and keep the work flowing even with work from home situation.
Employing management techniques to technology such as online employee monitoring systems, attendance records, and performance measuring programs the management can keep the productivity up. Technology alone has remained the most active player in keeping the masses informed and employing containment measures on a large scale, so technology is a manager’s friend and should be used as such.
In fact, for the longest time in service and product-based sectors both, such as IT and retail– work-from-home type employees have been utilized and efficiently integrated into business setups– COVID-19 situation can be seen as a larger-scale implementation of that. Of course, keeping the discipline of work should also be balanced with a humanitarian approach to relief and mutual support to curb the anxiety and stress of the situation a little. Managers can perhaps be a little more lenient and accommodating in terms of work hours- not at the cost of authenticity, for too much leniency comes off as inauthentic and takes some level of command away from the manger’s position.
Management to help to maintain social distancing and avoiding panic and mass hysteria
People are always afraid most of what they don’t understand, which is precisely the case for COVID-19. Most of us don’t really know much about how the situation is developing at its core and while the effort has been made on part of the governments to keep the transparency as high as possible, some level of doubt and skepticism can be seen among the people.
The Anti-lockdown protests in the USA, for instance, were a result of people disagreeing with the government’s decision to extend lockdown in America by another 4 months. Given the rapid rise of cases there, this situation with the protestors could have been entirely prevented, putting the lives of many people at risk if only some good management skills were used to educate the people on the matter better and spread awareness for the grave consequences of tight fit public gatherings.
Calling India densely populated is an understatement and thus we would suffer far more grim consequences than the USA right now if something of that sort happens in India. So, in order to prevent that the effective management on part of the police to ensure the laws are being followed, on the part of the government in writing regulations and laws for the said lockdown and then people of authority in between to ensure protective measures and social distancing will help the situation a lot.
