Coronavirus crisis.. how is it affecting your business/ employer?

[gftes]

I was just thinking about the massive impact this is having on businesses and also how it also affects businesses who are in demand because of the virus eg I imagine cleaning companies etc are busier than ever, drs and nurses obviously and care agencies
Online grocery delivery companies too

I'm an employment lawyer and we are very busy advising on hr implications of the virus ..

Bad for tourism, leisure and hospitality companies, airlines etc

I have a start up business which derives 95% of its income from public gatherings. If big events are banned, my business is going to go down the pan, and I won't be able to pay the rent. Summer is by far the busiest time of year for me, so losing a portion of the summer would be catastrophic

We’re losing a lot of senior management time to meetings about business continuity and financial implications in the event of pandemic. I work in finance for a large housing association which has quite a lot of sheltered housing and interestingly most of our elderly residents are pretty unphased by it all - a lot of them seem to have an “if I get it, I get it” mentality, which could end up being problematic because I suspect many wouldn’t self isolate if need be.

I work in Higher Education. We are in full on pandemic planning at the moment and working on the assumption we will be forced to shut in the next month. Apart from moving teaching online (my area so I'm working flat out) we are also having to consider the following:
Exams - How are we going to manage these online?
Graduation - Probably cancelled
Next year's intake - If A level exams are postoned/cancelled, how do we manage first year intake in September? DO we start giving out unconditional offers? Do we look at mocks? Do we delay intake till January and what will be the financial implications for us (hint: It's dire)
Foreign students and the money they bring in. We've already seen an exodus of our Italian students. We have a significant proportion of Chinese students. These are much more dificult to cater for online due to the great firewall of China.

The financial state of many HE institutions probably won't survive the combination of strikes (our lot have been out for the last 4 weeks off and on) and the virus. I confess to getting very irritated at the strikers demanding to know why I'm crossing the picket line each morning. "Trying to make sure you have a job to go back to" was my answer this morning.

DH is a GP. They are pandemic planning this week and have also been seeing patients with respiratory issues in a separate room, with the HCPs masked and gowned up.

I'm Civil Service. It all feels a bit head in the sand and although we can all work from home in my dept (which I have been doing this week although not for coronavirus purposes) no one is saying that we should be and indeed we are still expected to travel across the country to meetings etc.

My husband runs a small business. It's a bit hand to mouth anyway with cash flow (although profitable overall). He employs 8 members of staff full time on good (c40k) wages. The economic fall out from this will be huge. If the nation is at home the businesses that normally use his service won't be using his services. His wage bill (and tax from that wage bill) is dependent on the money rolling in every month. I foresee he will have to let people go if this is in any way prolonged - as even if his staff wfh or turn up to work the service he offers will be put on hold if the employees of the other businesses are not there and the general economic uncertainty will put lots of projects on hold. It's a mess.

DH is self employed - people are not booking in renovations in case they are stuck at home or don't want other people in their house along with customers being very very overdue with payments

I'm in the NHS. We are mainly receiving daily emails, running drills, side eyeing any colleague who coughs near us and trying to track down hand sanitiser, anti bacterial gel and Clinnel wipes to replace the ones the great British public have kindly removed from the wards.

I work in the travel industry so you can imagine how that's going

Yeah business very affected. Clients cancelling pre-booked work.

Our cash flow could keep us going for 2 months

Some last minute cancellations (service industry)and starting to look eerily quiet for the coming week or so
Small business that can't afford to lose

Monroe, people have taken hand sanitiser from hospital wards?! That’s shocking

I’m a childminder with a school age daughter.
If schools close, we may end up taking on extras to help parents out.
If the whole place goes on lock down and we can’t work, we will manage a month at most before having to leave London

Dh works in a small team in the City. They have been split up and placed in separate areas of London. As soon as a site gets closed they will work from home, but the technology has proved a bit challenging. He is lucky to work for a large company.

My heart goes out to those in the NHS, travel industry and small businesses that are affected, must be a nightmare.

We haven't been affected yet, but senior management are making plans.