Business Directory Bankers Association of Trinidad and Tobago – BATT response to COVID-19 lockdown and moving forward

June 3rd, 2020

1. People-first priority – Supporting the health and well-being of staff in practical ways by providing a safe work environment and helping employees adapt and thrive in a “new normal”. This intervention is critical, impacting employee engagement, productivity and retention. 
2. Initiating or expanding flexible work arrangements that allow people to work safely, efficiently and comfortably.
3. Managing the immediate financial fallout, planning the recovery and executing a sustainable post-COVID business. Business strategies will have to be reshaped, budgets revised, and operating cost elements reconsidered.

What change do you foresee being implemented with the new business norm? 

1. Many of the immediate changes businesses will make are: more work from home opportunities, changes in business operations and physical structures to reduce person to person contact and fewer in-person meetings. 
2. Beyond this – technological transformation. Technology to facilitate social distancing perimeters will play a more prominent role across different segments than it did before the pandemic, whether it is for e-commerce, online learning, online banking, remote work, meetings, telemedicine.
3. Companies will use the lessons learned during this period of disruption to recalibrate, get more creative, modify their operating practices to ensure that in the event of another disruption of COVID-19 magnitude, the “new business as usual” will be adequately resilient to any such shock. Aligned to this, companies will want to revisit and renew business continuity plans.