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Many companies and their workers are still to complete the transition to the new normal in doing business.

For many, there is need to wake up and realise that the difference between survival and going under is in understanding that the battleground and terrain have changed.

It is not uncommon to enter a business premises/shop only to find staff busy comparing their social media chats or find them in a social messaging mode.

One is lucky to get noticed.

If they are patient, they have to plead for someone to attend to them.

In cases where one is assigned someone to attend to them, the person comes across as an intern/novice, who has to constantly seek clarification.

How many times has one entered business premises and been greeted by a “Rottweiler” of a staff member who seems to believe you are interrupting their “social” phone calls or their preoccupation with social media?

Or office workers who behave like children on the playground and give the impression you are an unwelcome distraction?

A good example, among many, could be the power utility.

In recent times, the call centre for faults has been moved to Wynne Street, for Harare consumers.

Ordinarily there would be no issues with such a move as long as it brings with it better performance in service delivery.

In this particular case, this appears to have resulted in the opposite happening.

Calls to the centre rarely get answered. When they are answered, one has to be prepared for an inquisition instead of the caller’s details and location.

When one physically visits the site of the call centre, out of frustration, there is no access.

What is the justification for this layer of staff seemingly without deliverables?

For example, Mabelreign used to attend to faults in suburbs in the western, north-west and northern suburbs of the capital.

The place was a hive of activity. 

These days, one is attended to by a lone private security detail, with workers on duty wandering in around mid-afternoon on weekends. The attitude is decidedly laid back.

What process informed the decision to have people on duty over the weekend reporting mid-afternoon for such a critical sector?

In the past, there would be as many as more than a dozen vehicles for operations.

These days, one would be fortunate to find more than one functional vehicle for operations, yet the number of consumers and faults continue to increase, more so with the approaching rainy season.

Even with the few vehicles available for operations, fuel is a challenge. This has led consumers to offer own transport for staff of the power utility to get the faults attended to.

The disheartening part is that whereas senior staff are accorded fuel coupons for their issue vehicles, the same facility does not appear to extend to operations vehicles on stand-by. 

The painful truth is that sooner or later such businesses will face the inevitable because they cannot continue to pay workers who do not produce the revenue to sustain their salaries or an organisation’s growth.

It is in the interests or organisations such as the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), the Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe (EMCOZ), the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC), the retailers and bankers to invest in retraining staff on how to welcome and handle clients in the changed circumstances.

The process can include identifying a champion who will lead the transition to the new business normal or engaging training organisations to sensitise staff on managing and surviving the changed environment.

Banks are a very good example of what will happen to businesses unwilling to make the transition. They will shed off a lot of staff in order to remain as lean outfits — thanks in part to technology.

To what extent are owners aware of the conduct of their staff in interacting with clients?

It would be tragic for individuals or enterprises to invest so much in establishing businesses only to have the said enterprise run to the ground by staff who appear incapable of adding value to the growth and sustainability of the business.

What escapes many workers/staff is that they go to work to ensure their company or organisation remains viable and in the process is able to sustain salaries, stocks and over and above make something for a rainy day.

Each and everyone now needs to audit their contribution, under the changed circumstances, to the survival and growth of companies employing them.