Commerce Will Not Die It Will Simply Shift
By Linda Farneth
One might say there is no silver lining to this dark cloud that Covid19 has brought to our planet but an optimistic person might see this as an opportunity for growth.
With stay-at-home orders being extended smaller towns and county governments are finding it harder to continue putting work on hold and have been forced to install or upgrade their live stream capabilities in order to hold public meetings or hearings to get on with daily business.
Government agencies tasked with doling out unemployment have been experiencing backlog due to outdated software and financial programs, enforcing a need to upgrade technology in order to handle the increased load of work.
And home offices have had to be created all across the planet to allow many office workers to continue to earn a paycheck and work from home.
In a sense when this is all over many people and companies will see the value of employees working from home and there will no doubt be those who don’t want to go back to the old way of doing business.
Many computer and phone based jobs can be done from anywhere in the world. But the need to keep employees under the watchful eyes of employers has kept workers in office buildings rather than home offices or dens.
So how will bosses be sure their employees are pulling their weight and not padding their hours? Well many companies may choose to move to productivity based monitoring, where people are paid by how much product they sell, produce or deliver to customers. Another way of dealing with employee fraud would be to insist on work contracts that allow home office monitoring systems during hours the employee claims to be working.
So if we move a large portion of office jobs to home or remote offices what will happen to the jobs created by having huge high-rise office buildings, such as maintenance, cleaning, doormen and transportation jobs that bring workers to and from those offices?
Well eventually they will switch to either serve a new client or to perform a new service. For example. The vacant office buildings may shift to become housing such as condo’s, lofts or apartments. Doormen will still be needed as well as security but the customers will change. Transportation will serve to bring people from home (in the newly renovated office high-rise) to shopping and back.
Bosses will now need someone to monitor the cameras installed in home offices. Janitors and other service employees could fill that niche.
Some services will need to remain open for consumers to choose products in person, such as clothing, make up, hair and nail grooming, car buying etc. Restaurants will soon be back in favor and maybe more entertainment and gathering industries will become more in demand by the public and will be forced to adapt to the threat of disease by providing a cleaner environment.
Developing and providing safe air filtering and new surfaces that resist germs and viruses will open a new set of jobs for workers.
Commerce has always been ever-changing, however the change has happened more gradually. When the automobile industry began to boom with more affordable cars, replacing the horse and buggy many blacksmiths and grain dealers were terrified they would lose their jobs.
Some blacksmiths learned to service and repair cars while horses continued to serve farmers and smart grain dealers began marketing campaigns to entice humans to consume more oatmeal.
With some brain storming and ingenuity we can all make the best of this bad situation. If you’ve lost your job or business and are considering a career change or the creation of a new career or product you’re going to need a marketing strategy. Having the right person to write copy for your website is key.
If you’re an employer struggling to create a new form of at home employment manual, a good copywriter can perform that task to keep you free to focus on continued service to your customers.
If you’re an inventor looking to create the ultimate in germ resistant counter tops you need someone to help write grant proposals to seek funding. You’ll need someone to write marketing copy for your website and someone to ensure your product is seen by creating copy that will raise your SEO. (Search Engine Optimization)
If you need help or advice let’s talk.
I’m Linda Farneth and at Writing Web Copy that’s what I do. For more information or to hire a copywriter send an email with a brief description of your needs and questions and a link to your site if you already have one, to lindafarneth@gmail.com. I’ll get back to you within 24 hours, 48 on weekends and give you a description of how I can help and cost of my services.
Together we can get through this!
Colonial Beach News 