While the din of losing millions of jobs across the world is deafening, coronavirus has unfortunately not loosened its grip on the globe. Occasionally, nature will be this rough. But the tenacious end up surviving.
Already people have turned their private cars into fresh produce sheds and got a standing ovation for this innovation. What else can be done with the heap of talent the disease is ripping from companies?
When nature howls or new management goes against the grain, employers will cut workforce while some businesses temporarily close and emerge in a totally different form. While the employers take the bullet for not putting in place buffers for battling pandemics by ensuring their employees keep earning for a year or so, they started laying off people within months after the virus hit.
In Kenya, big companies have sent people packing, only remaining with a small team while saying they are turning digital and working smart to secure revenues to emerge stronger.
Among those who have been laid off are pilots and top media managers, among them experienced journalists. It is unsettling that immediately they were retrenched — not sacked — they joined a chorus led by others whose employment fate took a similar turn in the past to pour vitriol on the very same companies they worked for until a few days ago.
Don’t fall in love with your employer, some said, giving a chronology of success after losing a job. Even senior managers routinely call former employers names. That is reckless, because who will give you a similar or better role after reading your reactions? People who steer teams ought to deliver more than technical ability; they need to steer the ship even when the storms are harsher.
Where is professionalism in cursing a company that has just informed you that the ship is leaking and for it to continue with the journey, some contents have to be released carefully. While sending workers home, the employers claimed they were chiseling a plan that would not hurt those going home. They, however, failed since some companies could not pay the exit packages.
Good people or top talent have been identified as the must-have for companies that are focused on the future. According to Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, only right people are an asset. And, he says, right people have inimitable expertise but remain humble.
Kenyan professionals, it is not every day that a huge pool of talent will be easily available like when people are retrenched.
This should be the time to think about starting own practice as a sole proprietor, a partnership or a limited company. Globally, good companies have been borne out of distress, among them poor management.
Because you have the talent and capital from the retrenchment millions of shillings, journalists, aviation workers – including pilots dropped by the national carrier Kenya Airways — and top chefs waiting for normalcy to return, and the rest, you need to marshall a rare strength and staying power to launch your companies.
This is not the time to cry, moan, curse, and blame people for losing a job. It is the time to create a better job. According to mass media pundits, opportunities in digital media with great content are limitless, meaning billions of dollars are waiting to be tapped thanks to being good, careful research, and grit.
Among those sent home are people who have said many times how opportunities galore outside the confines of employment.
Instead of becoming a huge heap of wasteland after the retrenchment, true professionals should transform themselves into a wetland and become the source of life, in this case creating more jobs, profits and enhanced earnings as owners, not employees or managers.
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