Leveraging Resilience and Creativity to Thrive During the Pandemic

During the pandemic, all of us have been forced to adapt in unforeseen ways, both as individuals and as business leaders. And while almost every business or nonprofit in metro Atlanta has been negatively impacted by COVID-19, some organizations have been able to thrive during the uncertainty by pivoting their strategy.

My organization is a Southern-focused government relations firm that advocates for a diverse array of companies and nonprofits, including industries that were hardest hit by COVID-19, such as community hospitals, hotels and airport hospitality. Like its clients, the business has had to shift in all of the obvious ways to ensure employee and guest safety. But the last 10 months have also allowed the business to help forward-looking clients strategize for the new normal.

Here’s what I’ve learned, and a few strategies you may be able to implement in your own company.

• A national health advocacy organization chose to leverage the pandemic to step up its smoke-free campaigns, due in part to a growing body of research linking e-cigarettes and the spread of COVID-19. While continuing to support the passage of local ordinances to prohibit indoor smoking, the organization has pivoted to promoting clean water access in metro area schools to further ensure safe environments for metro Atlanta students even beyond COVID-19 guidelines.

Companies that do not always have public health considerations could look to incorporate them into their business in order to connect with new audiences.

• When Georgia opted to install new voting machines, everyone knew the rollout faced a tight timeline. But no one could have predicted the challenge of ensuring safe access to the ballot box during a global pandemic. And that happened as our state responded to the voters’ will and fundamentally changed the nature of voting through a hybrid system that included a paper ballot. When Georgia’s first election of the year took place on June 9, it combined three elections into one, curtailed opportunities for training and boosted voter turnout to record levels for a primary. All the while, the company had to deliver and maintain new voting machines and recruit and retrain poll workers at safe, social distances.

It resulted in plenty of lessons learned. Following that election, the still-new vendor launched a recruitment effort to hire and deploy thousands of equipment technicians. It held socially distanced training sessions and provided PPE for all its workers in time for the August primary runoff, resulting in a much smoother election — and the election in November was smoother still.

• Companies in the hospitality industry have been suffering. When the city of Los Angeles launched Project Roomkey, an effort by the local Homeless Services Authority to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among citizens experiencing homelessness, it looked to an airport hospitality vendor for help. The city repurposed unused hotel and motel rooms to aid this vulnerable population, and the company has served more than 120,000 meals since launching the service Memorial Day weekend.

This is a great example of a company leveraging its core strength — in this case, efficient and quality food service delivery — to address a timely and unforeseen need. Similarly, many hotels have used their sites to distribute food to their employees who are underutilized and therefore struggling financially.

• While probably every organization has been forced to make monumental changes, some small changes have been just as impactful. My company works with a local school board that has used the pandemic as a reason to finally take its newsletter digital, giving the board a chance to include even more vital information about how schools are preparing to reopen while increasing accessibility to parents and students during an especially challenging school year.

• In consumer goods, many companies have expanded their offerings to meet the changing needs of their customers, particularly with the increased need for home delivery. One national company in Atlanta secured the passage of a local ordinance that provides for home delivery of alcohol, for instance.

• In my company’s pandemic review of its lines of business, ORS has leveraged the office for both business and private use, generating new revenue as a studio for media companies whose business depends upon continuing to produce video content for the world to consume. The company has also extended invitations to share space with colleagues and friends to strengthen relationships that may foster new opportunities when the economy turns around.

Have you thought about how you’re using your unused office space?

We have all had to become more nimble and efficient during these trying times. But it is when we are challenged to act quickly and decisively that we grow and flourish. I’m proud of everyone who is figuring it out on the fly, and I’m confident that this experience will help us all spring into 2021 with even loftier aspirations.

Howard Franklin is the founder and managing partner of Ohio River South, a civic-minded and southern-focused advocacy firm.