Covid-19 has brought unprecedented times for the start-up ecosystem where layoffs and furloughs are becoming the new norm for companies to stay afloat. Big unicorns and prominent cash-rich start-ups overwhelmed the markets aren’t spared from repercussions COVID-19 effectuated steering to local and global demand fallout to further encounter historic layoffs and huge restructuring among the Unicorns and small-sized firms.
Already percolating with heavy cash burns, aggravated operational expenditures, and cut-throat competition from peers, lockdown impact has brought multiple businesses to a standstill and future forecasts aren’t much optimistic culminating to a point compelling firms towards layoffs, downsizing the expenditure and sealing off the businesses across are geographies. Hospitality and tourism sectors are major areas terribly affected by zero operational revenues and increased expenditures coaxing firms to fire huge number of employee resizing in the organisation to sustain the force majeure . Logistic start-ups though rejig operational model right from delivering food to all essentials at times of lockdown reported downfall of orders by whopping 80% has forced them to cut at least 10-20% of their workforce, most falling under customer support, operations, sales, and marketing. The increase of process automation and outsourcing already killed most of the entry-level customer-support and marketing jobs . Overall this scenario has brought precarity among employees career and growth potentials. also, the lockdown blues and work from home trauma where everyone is expected to contribute more working hours including weekends has affected many psychologically. Comprehending what employees are going through, many companies have started organizing connect sessions like meditation, yoga, and games to get them virtually connected and emotionally stimulated.
For those affected by layoffs, this is the best time to reinvent themselves. Prior economic recession transpired during 2008 gave rise to big corporate firms emerging to great heights. This expensive lockdown time can be effectively utilized in building scalable technologies and solving large scale consumer problems. It’s essential for a whizz to keep working on neo tech ideas to continuously modernize oneself. The plethora of Edu-tech platforms are available online to impart domain-specific knowledge to users which particularly includes LinkedIn Learning, Coursera offering proficient subject insights to upskill domain expertise. This helps individuals during switching roles . Also, Effectively establishing the professional network right from alumni base to online professional connections easing up the job switching process aided by prospective leads. The best example is alumni from IIM’S, IIT’s helping their juniors who are out rescinded offers from Big MNC’s and Global Start-ups. As it goes “One’s net-worth is his/her network”, lockdown times can be effectively used to network among peers virtually across multiple platforms and forums.
The best way to rejuvenate oneself is to reinforce the understanding that job losses are apparently due to prevailing economic and market conditions and not a reflection of one’s professional feebleness. It’s ubiquitous that tough times don’t last long but tough people do. Surviving abysmal times acts as a testimony for professional grit and endurance which certainly helps in building long professional careers and pursue higher responsibilities.
About the author
Anand Raghavan
About the author : Electrical Engineer with deep passion towards AI & deep learning. Also an avid writer who likes to research & write about Geo-politics of US & China. Passionate about free markets & foreign trade . Get to know more about me on Twitter @anandaragavan
WhatsApp us