When the pandemic started, I made a vow
Someone asked me recently at a business event what has been a meaningful moment for me in the last two years. I thought about it for a bit, told them, and they laughed about it. I was caught by surprise because this is so important to me.
Here’s the moment I referred to.
Two years ago this week, most parts of the world went into lockdown. The latest news from Italy was showing army trucks carrying the bodies of Covid-19 victims to their place of final rest because regular funeral services couldn't keep up. Flights stopped. The world had come to a halt. We were experiencing all sorts of emotional discomfort, often varying from disbelief to outright panic within the same 30 min. In Bali, we had just closed our hub "for two weeks". But it was already clear to many that this would go on for much longer. Eighteen months, some of us were whispering, to others' dismay.
I usually spend the first couple hours of the day reading, writing, and reflecting. And I think that during a crisis, it's essential to keep our daily habits and signal to our bodies and minds that everything will be all right.
So, during one of my morning reflections, I made a vow.
The vow was that not even one of our team members would be let go or have to go without a salary, even temporarily because it's a pandemic/we're closed/they're out of work.
We might go down or out of business in other ways; but not having ideas, and not trying, wasn't going to be us.
For context, Livit has several different services, including tech recruitment, HR Business Partner, consultancy, training, and more.
But at the time, a LARGE part of our business, namely our coworking and innovation hub, was highly dependent on people being able to 1. come in to work from the hub 2. travel to Bali 3. attend events. All of which became impossible in the blink of an eye, and Bali's economy tanked. Not to mention that coworking is a low margin industry even in the best of times.
So how do you keep an "absurd" vow like that, as a small business?
In short, this is what we did:
We encouraged our team members to think bigger with their careers. At Livit, we see roles as fluid and redeploy team members frequently. So we were able to upskill some of our teams to help with tasks from finance and online events to HR.
We also redeployed some team members as online trainers, entered new partnerships, and created new services, such as a premium Work-From-Home package where we helped people create productive spaces at home during lockdown, complete with meal and laundry delivery services.
We launched the Remote Skills Academy, which teaches Indonesians how to work and get jobs online
We focused on our digitally-enabled services, such as tech recruitment - which we've been doing for 10 years now for ourselves and other companies; this segment alone doubled during the pandemic.
Last but not least, we spent some time re-shaping and building up our processes and team workflows, which helped us sustain what came next.
Fast forward to March 2022.
We ended up not only keeping everyone in our teams employed but being busier than ever these last 2 years. We also created and expanded a program that helps Indonesians up-skill, take charge of their careers and get employed in better jobs - or employ themselves. We employed more people ourselves (we almost doubled our team during the pandemic!). And many alumni of our program support and employ further people as well.
A pay-it-forward, ripple effect.
We are coming out of this pandemic stronger.
Smarter.
More agile.
More resilient.
BETTER.
They say "bad companies are destroyed by crisis, good companies survive them, great companies are defined and improved by crisis" (Andy Grove).
I'm not very good at titles, awards, and celebrating, but I think we're one of those companies. Last year, we became a certified Great Place To Work with 100% of our employees saying anonymously to external auditors we are one.
Team, I'm so grateful for what we have going.
Be proud, we outdid ourselves!
