Calling time on indecision

I read last week that while most of us have had a 20% pay cut during the Covid-19 crisis, since the March lockdown, civil servants have remained on full pay. As have scientists and politicians, presumably, in other words all those that are making the decisions about returning our economy to some degree of normality.

For the rest of us, even those that have worked throughout, we have taken pay cuts to preserve our cash flow and in solidarity with our staff who are furloughed on 80% of their wages. And this does not include the hit we have taken, as business owners, to our cash reserves. 

There was also a story recently that Theresa May (remember her), not the most successful political leader of all time, earned £160,000 in speaking fees by doing nothing after the coronavirus lockdown forced the cancellation of two public speeches that she was due to make.  Even before we get to who would pay to listen to her, we have to question whether we are really all in this together and what drives the motivations of the political elite in the decisions that are being made.

Having hosted three party political conferences at The Imperial, Blackpool, I am familiar with seeing politicians in the raw, away from the media spotlight, and my impression was that most of them were motivated by two priorities – power and legacy. However, it seems that the pandemic has confused them about who is in power, them or the scientists, and what legacy they are aiming for.

It was never a trade-off between health and business, but the government have become conditioned to handing out money and are obsessively risk averse pending an enquiry into the pandemic, and business has been left holding the baby. I am a great believer that you need to have skin in the game and failure is a great motivator, but we have to ask, what does failure look like for the decision makers? The future of huge swathes of the economy and the viability of businesses that have taken many years to develop needs to move up their list of priorities. 

The virus exists now in around one in 1,700 people – do the maths on how likely it is to be spread in an average sized school, yet we are having to work from the kitchen table while juggling home schooling and wondering when our businesses will reopen.

The majority of our teams are desperate to get back to work. The novelty of long lie ins and walking the dog in the sunshine have started to wane. But some have grown used to this ‘new norm’ and are less nervous about the safety risks of coming back to work than the change from the new social norm that has been imposed on them.

Overdraft charges have been paused, mortgage holidays given, and spending reduced as shops have been shuttered but the real normality has to come back at some point.

It is estimated that a pile of personal debt of £6 billion has built up during lockdown alongside the around £330 billion in government borrowing which is now calculated to be 17% of GDP in 2021, the highest since 1963.

Hotels are forecasting 20% occupancy for July, desperate to believe that July 4th will signal reopening of the doors, but with only 5% occupancy on the books. The absence of banqueting and social distancing in our restaurants and bars means that July and August will produce significant losses.

Hotel operators are feeling their way through flaky guidelines and unclear processes and know that staff who are currently furloughed will need to be brought back into the business to be trained on new standards and procedures – but when?

Should we plan to leave bedrooms unoccupied for 24 or 72 hours or can we let them the next day if we use foggers and electrostatic sprayers, or simply air the rooms before they are used again. We need answers so that we can plan for reopening and organise our staffing accordingly.

It is not good enough hoteliers’ forums post emojis of crossed fingers for the much-heralded reopening date of July 4th or that we are still asking each other if we can start promoting our Christmas parties, never mind the weddings that keep pushing back further and further. 

We are storing up problems for later this year and into next year and we need to get moving now.