During times of crisis, you need to ‘think different‘ (thanks to Steve Jobs for the phrase). You need to reflect on how to add value to your clients during difficult times.

At the moment, I am seeing many Coronavirus-related posts on LinkedIn advising employers on practical HR issues such as managing sick leave and implementing remote work.

These posts come from a place of generosity.

When it comes to managing your HR business, however, there are two problems with the approach:

1. Everyone is doing it. If you share more of the same, you are seen as another generic HR consultant sharing generic advice.
2. Employers need more. By now, employers know what to pay and how to set up remote work via Zoom.

Employers of all sizes are suffering.

• Airlines are under intense pressure.
• Conference hosts are their entire revenue stream.
• Small-medium brick ‘n mortar businesses may shut down.

Think Outside The Box

All businesses need fresh ideas to help them get through this.

What higher-level advice and support can you give employers that will help them in these difficult times?

• Can you offer free or low-fee, low-touch services that address their immediate pressing needs?
• Can you find a way to help them keep or find new clients such as referring business to them?
• Can you help your various clients team-up to create marketing partnership promotions?

Take some time to think outside the box.

Give Them Higher-Level Advice

Years ago, employers in Australia (and around the world) were facing dark times following the global financial meltdown.

HR consultants everywhere were giving the same employment law advice regarding layoffs.

An Example [Free Download]

It’s not fancy and it’s not super advanced but click here to look at a special tips sheet I wrote back in 2009 for employers on how to manage staff in uncertain times.

The tips sheet was nothing amazing and I shudder at the design, but rather than just talking about redundancy legislation, the focus throughout was on trying different things, new ideas to get through the tough times.

What can you do?

To give you some ideas, check the two articles below. They both share positive solutions that are fresh and a little less common.

This Harvard Business Review article is very useful.

This MIT Sloan Management Review article also has some helpful ideas.

I’d love to hear what you can come up with – email me.

And above, stay safe.

All the best,

Ben

Steve Gordon is the Founder of The Unstoppable CEO and host of the excellent The Unstoppable CEO podcast.

Steve and I had a great conversation about his business success and B2B marketing.

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Skore is an amazing new-generation learning platform that helps scaling companies to distribute knowledge in a very flexible way – by building customized experiences that can work on any combination of platforms: web, mobile, chatbot.

The platform is especially good for distributed teams.

I spoke with CEO and Co-Founder, Luis Novo about Skore, the future of learning, growing an HR Tech company, and more.

Listen out for a very clever strategy Skore uses to win over potential new customers.

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Say “Hello” to Max; he is an AI chatbot assistant. He addresses employee retention and performance by communicating with workers, predicting which actions will make people stay and perform their best, and offering to initiate those actions – things like group knowledge sharing, 360-degree feedback, mentoring, recognition, and more.

I had a great chat with Carolyn Peer, CEO & Cofounder of Humaxa and co-creator of Max* the AI-based HR Tech chatbot.

* Max changed his name (from Alfred) since this episode was recorded. Apparently he felt it was time for a new look and that’s ok by us 🙂

Carolyn has 17+ years of experience working in the Human Capital Management industry and 14 years leading and managing in a Fortune 250 company.

Carolyn has an academic background in Cognitive Neuroscience and Instructional technology, which she uses to guide Humaxa’s product vision.

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