Are you doing all you can to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, now and in the future?
Usually people ask me, “Where are your offices? Do you have to do the dreaded commute into London every day? Poor you.”
I always answer – somewhat defiantly I confess – by saying, “No. In our business we need to go wherever our clients need us, so we do. But mostly we work from our homes. And every day, wherever we are in the world, we have a sundowner to catch up.”
Today, and I mean today 19th March 2020, everything has changed. When I ask, “Are you at home?” an alarming number of people say they aren’t. They’re flying in the face of all the evidence that says personal contact – whether socially or through work – is how the virus spreads. Rampantly in the case of COVID-19.
The immediate risks
All of us at Moot Hill welcome the advice the government is asking us to follow and are happy to do whatever we can to prevent the virus’s spread. We know from experience that working from home isn’t so bad.
But, like most other businesses, we don’t want to stop. We avoid unnecessary travel so we don’t place our clients or ourselves at greater risk. We already use Zoom, WhatsApp and FaceTime to stay in touch and hold virtual meetings. We’re just doing it more often.
And when it’s essential that we do meet face to face we take plenty of precautions. We don’t shake hands, we restrict meetings to no more than five people and we sit well apart. It really isn’t hard. But it is effective and it is absolutely worthwhile.
The long-term risks
Unprecedented times such as these test us all in ways we can’t plan for. On the one hand they bring out the best in people and spark our creativity to create positive change. But it’s an uncomfortable truth that they also cause conflict and lasting harm. After all, who could have imagined that we’d be reduced to fighting in the aisles over pasta and loo roll?
If you’re worried that you might have a dispute developing over an important contract or business matter where a fear of loss is escalating because of the virus, please don’t ignore it.
By doing so you won’t avoid the stress and cost a dispute can bring. And you won’t save yourself time to deal with other, more important matters. The best thing to do is to recognise that you could be falling into dispute and work to resolve it before it develops into a conflict with the potential to cause lasting financial and reputational harm.
We can help you resolve your dispute quickly, whether it’s over a commercial or a private matter.
And furthermore, don’t wash your hands of the dispute… just to keep safe.
