Partner Article

What lessons UK businesses can learn from China’s lockdown experience

As UK businesses get into the rhythm of this new reality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic it’s important to look to nations who have begun to successfully come out the other side of lockdown and learn lessons from the companies operating there.

Since lockdown began just over a month ago, social distancing and remote working have become the norm for most businesses. These measures are vital but can leave employees feeling isolated and disconnected from colleagues. Global businesses with operations in China, such as Airwallex, have had time to experiment and find the most effective ways to keep teams engaged and productive during this time. We’ve learned from their lockdown experience that it comes down to three simple categories: retaining the office atmosphere, ensuring teams are goals-driven and creating tailored communications.

Keep the office environment The workforce in China has largely returned to the office now, and teams are reminded of how beneficial the regular face-to-face interactions they have with colleagues are - lost when practising social distancing. Lack of human interaction can lead to isolation and a loss of camaraderie, in turn impacting morale. But self-isolation doesn’t need to equal loneliness.

Technology is a great ally to businesses at the moment, and novel practices used in China helped bring teams together while physically apart. We have seen mass adoption of online collaboration tools available which can replicate being in the office, such as Slack for instant messaging and Zoom for video conferencing. A novel way to use these is to set up an all-day Zoom and encourage team members to pop in for a quick chat with colleagues when they need a mental break, just like they would in the office when making a drink in the kitchen. These times can feel highly stressful meaning it’s more important than ever for colleagues to be there for one another. It’s also likely to positively reinforce working relationships which will prove helpful once we return to work.

Having the camera on during video conferencing meetings makes all the difference. It can increase rapport and create a collaborative environment for teams to share ideas, and without video these meetings would just be another phone call. The window into colleagues’ lives at home also adds a much needed human touch as children, partners and pets make regular cameos, whether planned or not.

Even when the working day is over, these remote tools also serve to be a hub of social activity, keeping that team night out or Friday pub feel alive. Virtual drinks, quizzes, and ‘through the keyhole’ tours are a great way to help teams unwind and discuss things other than work. While keeping spirits up, it also breaks up the monotony of working from home.

Stay results-driven An issue common to many businesses is keeping productivity levels high while the team is dispersed. The workforce needs to keep focused on delivering results, which can be difficult. Leadership teams should set daily and weekly goals to keep teams on track. To ensure teams still have control over their own workload it’s important to encourage them to develop individual daily plans which will help increase accountability and keep on track of personal deliverables. Learning from our China team who has returned to the office it is clear to me how goal setting during lockdown gives teams a sense of purpose and motivation, and this has resulted in a smooth transition back to normality.

Another key learning from our team in China is the importance of over-communication. This helps teams to understand what each other are working on and where colleagues are feeling stretched at times. It’s particularly key for managers to maintain a good understanding of how and what people are working on. Although teams are no longer in the same physical space, it’s important that the business can look back each week and celebrate wins as well as understand and overcome roadblocks.

Tailor external communication Businesses are not going through this dramatic change alone – customers and partners are also adapting to a new online way of working. With the widespread cancellation of events, meetings and face-to-face interactions mean businesses have had to dramatically scale down any offline meeting plans. Being understanding of partner and customer struggles can make all the difference as people will reflect on empathetic behaviours during lockdown.

As a result of widespread event cancellations, it’s important to tailor any external communications and reassign budgets to digital marketing, social and mobile campaigns as usage will peak during this time.

The unprecedented shift to mass remote working has seen an uplift in the use of social media from Facebook to LinkedIn as people endeavour to stay connected. Businesses can use this to secure leads as people are now spending more time on their devices.

In China, there was an uptick in using WeChat - the widely used messaging services similar to WhatsApp - to communicate with customers. Using instant messenger is a quick, easy way to keep customers and partners in the loop with updates with minimal effort. Coming out on the other side, the China team has continued the increased usage of Wechat to informally share updates with customers as it proved so effective during lockdown. Opening new channels of communication has been a great learning and an easy measure for teams globally to adopt.

Seeing teams from across the globe come out of lockdown successfully brings hope to the UK. Businesses can learn from them and replicate their fight against COVID-19.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by James Butland, VP of Global Banking, Airwallex .