By Neville Chaney
How’s business? That’s a question that I have heard (and asked) during my 46-year business career over and over again. In times of 20% interest rates, the financial crisis of 2008, and the pandemic of 2020 there was truly a sense of “what’s next” in the answers that I received.
By Neville Chaney
Covid and creativity. Those two words don’t seem to go together, yet maybe they do. Operation Warp Speed is the first thing that comes to my mind. Despite all obstacles, America was able to harness its resources to develop multiple vaccines to protect us against this virus. Not only was this done in record time – but almost incredibly unbelievable time.
By Neville Chaney
Your workspace. Are you back to your office yet? Have your company managers mentioned what they plan to do when the vaccine ratios in your community indicate it is okay to open the doors again? Or, will you even be coming back to the office? It’s been so very interesting to view the various policies among our customers.
By Neville Chaney
Communication within your organization and with your customers during a pandemic is essential. If you are in management, make this happen beyond your direct reports. Find out what is happening in their lives.
Depression can be a result of these challenging times. When we discovered that we had a pandemic, few people thought too much about it. Previously, pandemics such as the SARS virus did not affect our daily lives universally the way that the COVID-19 virus has. PPE was just another acronym and many of us had no idea what it meant.
By Neville Chaney, President, WJ Office
As we complete 2020 I think that the consensus for many folks is that the best thing about this year is that it’s coming to a close! Who even contemplated such a landscape as we have had to address as a society and as a business community? We’ve learned a lot of new words like social distancing, pandemic, lockdown, and even Zoom. Our society has been under stress unlike anything that I have seen since the 1960s. We have struggled to remain united, yet unique.
By Neville Chaney
The Post Office is normally not in the news. However, it holds a special place in my heart and in my memories. My father was a mail carrier – for over 35 years! My mother also worked at the post office in a temporary job sorting an influx of cigarette lighters that RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company was distributing through the mail in the late 1950s. That job transitioned into her being the second full time female postal employee in the Winston-Salem post offices.
The great work-from-home (WFH) wave thrust upon us by the global pandemic is here to stay. Now is the time to bring security and normalcy to the varieties of improvised solutions companies have scrambled to create. You’ve probably been resourceful in your deployment, but you may have unwittingly invited vulnerabilities that could be costly to your bottom line and your reputation. Typical work-from-home setups give employees everything they need to do their job: laptops, phones and workflow and print management software.
Well now this was an interesting piece of information we learned during a recent Kimberly-Clarke webinar - single use towels are the most effective and most hygienic item to use when drying hands after a good wash. For one thing the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends single-use paper towels in its patient safety instructions for healthcare workers. So that tells you something right there.
There has been a great deal of misinformation when it comes to disinfectants, but if you review the following 12 points summarized very well by Frank Hoard, Director of Facility Supply Channel—Independent Suppliers Group, you should have no confusion on the truth about the material and what you need to know in order to get the best results.
A special message from Neville Chaney
I am sure that all of you have been inundated with messages of what the folks who you normally do business with and some who you don’t are modifying their business practices as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic. Things have been moving so fast over the past week or so that we have delayed our message, but I wanted to assure all of you that we, like most, are trying to do everything we can to protect our staff, protect our customers and suppliers while continuing to be a resource for you.
