Coronavirus permanent impact.

Has Coronavirus caused a permanent impact?

Coronavirus is having an impact on us all and the change may be permanent. Many people are waiting for things to return to normal, but what if it doesn’t? Social distancing, working from home, and the slowdown in certain industries, may in some way continue forever. Working from home had already been gaining acceptance. Industries such as retail had already been progressing towards online shopping. Coronavirus might have only sped up the transition. If this is the case, we may need to quickly adapt to the changes. Many have lost their jobs, but new positions exist. If we consider three different industries that have been impacted, hospitality, retail, and fitness, they have all changed. From the customer’s view, factors such as cost, and access from home, are now more important. Adjusting to the new priorities of customers might be required if we are in these industries. Let’s consider an example from each of these areas.

Coronavirus impact on Hospitality.

Many people used to regularly dine out at restaurants or fast food venues. Coronavirus has made social distancing and financial concerns higher priorities for many, which may have a permanent impact. If our cooking and eating habits changed, we may prefer to cook from home. If we are happy with this new norm, we might not want to revert to our previous dining habits. Cost is another thing that became more important. Dining out is typically more expensive, which may prevent us from going out. We might need to consider that the crisis could have a lingering impact, even after things return to normal. The desire to dine out may have forever declined.

If we lost a job in hospitality, waiting for another position might take some time. Others also lost their jobs and will be competing for new ones, so positions will be in high demand. To get ahead of the competition, it might be a good time to change. We could consider our expertise, and then work out how to best apply it to the current situation.

Looking at chefs, for example, there may be less demand in restaurants, but more people are cooking at home. Thinking creatively about how chefs could help home cooks might be the best solution. It could be sharing some new recipes, or showing how to make some signature dishes using online video conferencing technology. Chefs have many skills and a lot of knowledge that they could pass on. The best use of their talents now may be helping others with home cooking, instead of cooking at restaurants themselves. We can see a similar impact in another industry such as retail.

Impact on retail.

Coronavirus may have a permanent impact on retail as well. The importance of social distancing has caused shops to close or limit customers. It’s questionable if shopping will return to normal when things settle down. Shopping online at home has become essential for safety. Some people had never done this before, but are now more comfortable with the process. If they had a good experience, it may now be their preferred choice. Online shopping can also be cheaper. With expenses becoming a focus area, it might persuade individuals to continue to shop online. This may mean some people’s shopping habits have permanently changed.

Retail is another industry where we could rethink our options. If we lost a retail job, a new opportunity might take some time to present itself. Customers will still be requiring assistance, but may no longer be walking into shops to get help. The demand has shifted; people need less help in physical stores but need more help with online shopping. We might need to rethink how we can change to help the customer’s new requirements. We could consider their needs, such as budget, selection, or delivery times, and direct them to the best online options. This would still be providing the service the customers need but in a different way. Another area, the fitness industry, has also potentially had long term changes.

Impact on fitness.

Fitness has also changed with home-based training becoming a higher priority. Going to a gym, with many people in close vicinity, may not return to its previous popularity. Social distancing will remain on everyone’s mind even if the pandemic is controlled. Then some have bought home gym equipment and will want to make the most use of it. Another factor is gyms can be pricey, with the budget being a higher priority, many could cancel. These factors may result in a change to long term behavior.

Personal trainers could change to help clients better. While gym popularity might reduce, it’s likely to even out with more people exercising at home. Trainers could create home-based work out routines to help their clients. For example, instead of doing group fitness sessions in the gym, they could do pre-recorded workouts. Then adding a social aspect, the group share activity and results. Taking into account the client’s new requirements would be essential to deliver training sessions. While these industries are all unlike, common changes are throughout.

Common theme.

The underlying theme is that due to the pandemic, customer priorities and mindsets have changed. Conducting activities from the safety of home is now more important. Due to financial restraints, costs will be more closely managed. These new priorities could be short term or continue forever in some way or another. We have a choice to either adapt to the changes or wait for things to return to normal.

If we believe everything will stabilize soon, then there isn’t much we need to do besides wait and see. The situation and time-frame are outside of our control. On the other hand, we could consider the changes are in some way permanent, which changes things. We can no longer wait it out, we would need to act. While we still can’t control the situation we can adapt to it. If we were working in an industry that has been heavily impacted, meeting our customer’s new priorities is important. The current situation may require some creative thinking to apply our skills. The situation may be outside of our influence, but that doesn’t mean we are helpless. What we do next considering the situation is up to us.