In Australia and across the globe, lockdowns have become a somewhat regular feature of life since the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Like many industries, it’s been crucial for the property industry – and the businesses within it – to adapt and find their feet at a pace much faster than ever before. And the current situation in New South Wales is expected to exacerbate this: realestate.com.au’s Director of Economic Research, Cameron Kusher, says while lockdowns have had a negligible impact on the Australian property market so far, that was likely because they’ve been ‘snap lockdowns’ expected to be over quickly. Times have changed since then.
The good news? Technology is here to help. At TCPinpoint, we’ve long been passionate about the opportunities for transforming your business through technology, and have been making strides in the area for years before these turbulent times. Read on for some of the ways our platform can future-proof your business and mitigate against risk, even when facing the unexpected.
1. Communication and management issues
When you don’t see fellow staff members in-person every day (or have a consistent routine established to check in with them), it can be difficult to keep track of their whereabouts at the best of times, and this is only worsened when a lockdown is placed on an area. Some managers have reported frustration at not knowing when their staff are on site or not.
You can avoid all of this by using TCPinpoint. Our platform makes it easy to communicate with all members of your team: communications are all in one place, and won’t get lost amongst the many different channels it otherwise could (endless emails, texts, Slack channels… sound familiar?)
2. Work-life balance
For people working entirely from home during lockdown, it can be difficult to create boundaries and establish a clear separation between work life and personal life – the computer and phone are always there, and there’s no physically leaving the ‘office’.
TCPinpoint’s ToDo functionality – which you can find on our TC Inspect product – allows you to drop items in for discussion digitally, and collate them for discussion at a time that suits all parties. Time to wave goodbye to making phone calls at 7am (or Zoom meetings at 7pm).
3. Burnout and mental health issues
This point is inextricably linked with work-life balance. Burnout is something that many people face when they’re overworked, and overworking can be exacerbated when people are working from home: checking every new email despite them arriving outside of normal work hours; making a call when it could probably wait until the next day; thinking you’re required to meet tighter deadlines because you’ve ‘gained’ more time with your now non-existent commute.
TCPinpoint addresses this by being a platform that is calming to use. In everything we do, we promote empathy: our entire goal is to make sense of chaos, not add to it. Teams who use TCPinpoint have found that it makes more time for their life outside of work, not in it.
4. Changes to equipment and necessities
In a lockdown, work equipment and technological necessities may change as you move away from working in a traditional office space. A switch to video calls in lieu of face-to-face meetings, an uptake in task management platforms and increased electronic communications have been ‘the new normal’ for some time now. But there are always updates to technology to keep on top of, and it’s the teams that adapt most readily that will remain strong as prolonged or continual lockdowns affect business.
TCPinpoint is ready to adapt, and we’ve continually proven our commitment to doing so. Our team is always working on product updates, so you know that you have access to the very best technology available, at all times.
5. Less in-person meetings could mean slower timelines
For some projects, approval can be given verbally, or upon the signing of papers in-person. This is not possible in the same way during lockdown, and though technology is readily available for people to communicate with, initiative isn’t always taken by individuals – leading to prolonged back-and-forths via email, missed calls, or otherwise slow response times. Live spreadsheets that aren’t regularly maintained just add to the problem.
That’s where we come in. TCPinpoint provides you with calm dashboards, allowing you to do away with the chaos of endless emails and messy Excel spreadsheets. The platform enhances collaboration and enables your team to work from anywhere, simply.
6. A pressing need to restructure and optimise
When you step away from the office, you have the time and space to really consider your existing processes and whether they’re working or not. This time can be used to review and revise your processes – for one, it’s a great opportunity to capture people when they’re not needing to be on-site. Think of it as an opportunity to optimise your processes.
If you haven’t considered something like TCPinpoint before for retail project delivery, now is the time. Be brave, and welcome the future with open arms – your business will be all the better for it.
TCPinpoint is cloud-based workflow platform that manages the multitude of tasks, communications, documents and reporting required in the delivery of retail shops. Move from the old world chaos of Excel spreadsheets to calm dashboards, enhancing collaboration and enabling your team to work from anywhere. Find out more about TCPinpoint here.