The impact of COVID-19 on our work and business
By Martina Bauerová, HR Manager and Petra Volčková, Marketing Manager | www.businesslease.sk
Last year was challenging and full of change for everyone. Our people adapted to work from home and work, where the line between privacy and work has become blurred. Many people faced a loss of income and health fears.
We in Business Lease are really happy that we together, as one strong team, were able to deliver excellent financial results in 2020. Especially we are proud on our high customer & employee satisfaction scores. Business Lease is confirming its positioning, that also in hard times, we behave as a strong caring company!
There are no clients, employees or colleagues in this photo. There are family members, where we respect and support each other. We look forward to being together again.
Fortunately, thanks to the fact that we have built a stable business and a strong culture at Business Lease, we did not have to expose our employees to the fear of losing their jobs due to the impact of COVID-19.
Even before the lockdown was announced in March 2020, Business Lease switched to work from home. We were ready for this, as we were prepared not only technically, but also from the human side.
Our culture, built on trust, was as important as high-quality technical support. Team managers knew that their people performed not due to fear and control, but because they felt responsible for the result. They could thus rely on their teams.
We communicated to everyone that personnel costs were not going to be reduced. We did not adjust the 2020 targets. We adjusted the strategies to achieve the targets, to ensure sustainability. Our love and passion for work saw us through the difficult times.
It confirmed to us that the values of the whole company and each of its members is the basis of success as regards performance and results. This situation suited those who were ready and who were not afraid to quickly innovate at their business.
Thanks to the fact that there are many such people at Business Lease, we managed this year without too much damage. Despite the fact that we were ready for the new mode of operation very quickly, we also experienced difficult times. But we coped. Isolation from teams and colleagues who are close to being our friends affected everyone’s mood and left their mark on the working atmosphere. Each member of the team, from directors to specialists, had to adjust to a different style of communication.
We consider openness, trust and interest to be the cornerstone of success when building a team at a distance. Every activity, be it regular one-to-ones, staff meetings, informative e-mails, online meetings, packages of vitamins and fruit contributed to the feeling that we are still together and that Business Lease takes care of its staff.
Even during this period, we managed to achieve several HR successes:
changes to the commercial department structure to strengthen sales
recruitment of new members
update values
introduction of regular employee satisfaction surveys (Pulse Check)
wage market research and grades setting
new bonus system
etc.
And how did it affect our work with customers?
The pandemic year introduced an interesting trend. The interest of companies in operational leasing has increased significantly. Even companies that until recently bought cars in cash, started to be interested in financing and services outsourcing. Last year, our company managed 5,673 vehicles for companies under operational leasing and fleet management. According to our statistics, despite the pandemic, drivers drove 151,427,544 km, requested 813 assistance interventions, and of a total of 3,915 calls to the call centre, most of them, 3,208, were concerned with service or tyre service orders.
Predictions for this year are difficult to make given the uncertain development of the pandemic impact. Economists predict economic recovery in the second half of the year. Customers have adapted and business continues. We believe everything is going back to normal.
In communication with our clients, we have also switched to online mode. We began to ask them more, to talk with them, to be interested and to help them with their difficulties. We started with our own webinars, and we started to be more active in online communication, for example, we surprised our promoters with an unconventional online business breakfast. We launched a new product focused on the B2C segment -operational leasing for individuals and for employees of large companies as a mobility benefit. During the pandemic, our customers of used vehicles appreciated the safe delivery of the vehicle to their home and the possibility of an online viewing of the vehicle before purchasing.
Many of our “pandemic” activities were completely new for us, but we see in them a huge benefit and appreciation from our clients. Therefore, we will continue with them, no matter how the situation develops.
At the core of it all is our belief that people matter most. It’s the cornerstone of Business Lease. We take great pride in our humanistic approach and make a point of punctuating every business, webinar or event interaction with a smile.
We will continue to strive to be the best mobility partner for our clients.