The journey to the pandemic’s long goodbye received an added boost last week when President Biden symbolically removed his mask. If this in any way signifies that our long, international nightmare is almost over, then it is only appropriate to take the temperature of the office imaging space to find out how far we’ve come and, more importantly, how far we have to go to achieve something that resembles the old normal.
Earlier this week, we asked our readers a series of questions designed to learn more about how their employees have fared during the pandemic. The following are the results and analysis based on your responses, and we thank all of those who took the time to participate.
First, let’s take a look at the demographics of our responders. More than 66% identified themselves as dealerships. Another 16% were represented by dealers and direct operations. About 5% fell into the remanufacturer category, while the balance was spread across VARs, MPS and managed IT specialists, and supplies resellers.
From a geographic standpoint, about 34% hail from the northeast, 22.5% are midwestern, 16% are southwestern, and 14.5% are from the southeast.
We asked responders what percentage of their workforce is back in the office. Slightly more than 40% indicated they are 100% on-site, while another 19% reported that more than 75% of their employees are on-site. Nearly 13% said that more than 50% of their workers were back in the office. At the lower end of the scale, 16% said their on-site staff ranks were between 10% and 25%. Only 3% reported having less than 10% back on-site.
ENX Magazine then asked employers to evaluate their team’s ability to work from home. The top response was “as well as expected,” at 45%. More than 27% characterized work performance as “somewhat better than expected” while 16% responded “much better than expected.” Slightly less than 10% termed it as “somewhat below expectations,” with less than 2% reporting it as “well below expectations.”
With normal activity reduced to various degrees, we asked responders how well team members made use of downtime. The top response was “acceptable job of training/improving processes,” which came in at 45%. Nearly 18% believed their employees did an “excellent job of training/improving processes.” A full 37% reported, “we accomplished some learning and process improvement, but could have done better.”
With a full year of work-from-home protocol to measure, we asked responders about their post-pandemic attitude toward continued utilization. Topping the responses was “everyone will be back in the office, but we will allow it under certain circumstances (inclement weather, sick child, etc.)” which was selected by 42%. Another 32% said they would “utilize a hybrid office/work-from-home schedule. About 18% said that “everyone will be back in the office, with no work from home.” Just 8% felt work-from-home “worked well and we will at least continue it on a limited basis.”
We then asked what percentage of employees were laid off or furloughed during the pandemic. Nearly 42% did not implement layoffs or furloughs. Another 22.5% reported between 10% and 25%, while about 21% said less than 10%. Just 8% reported between 25% and 50%, while only 6.4% combined reported 50%-plus or 75%-plus for layoffs and furloughs.
We also asked responders how long their furloughs lasted. Fully half of the participants did not rely on furloughs, but nearly 18% reported longer than six months. Almost 10% indicated four to six months, while 13% said two to four months. Nearly 10% were split between less than a month and less than two months.
Of those companies that implemented layoffs or furloughs, allowing for multiple choices, 78% were in the service department, 58% in sales and 50% selected admin.
Only about 26% of responders indicated that they implemented pay cuts. Of those responders, 53% indicated the reduction in pay was less than 20%, while 29% selected less than 10%. About 18% of responders noted pay cuts in excess of 20%.
Conversely, we asked responders if they had hired employees during the March 2020-April 2021 period. Slightly more than 66% indicated they had, with 61% hiring five or fewer, 24% hiring 10 or fewer, and 15% adding more than 10 employees. Sales garnered the most new recruits, at 73% of companies actively hiring, followed by service (44%) and admin (35.6%).
Analysis
The good news is, a lion’s share of companies are either 100% back at their desks or at least at 50% capacity (72% total). Considering companies had little choice but to implement work-from-home protocol, the fact that 43% total exceeded expectations to some degree is promising. But with 45% answering “as well as expected,” that could be viewed through a number of lenses; if those expectations were quite low heading into WFH, that could paint a different picture. Shame on the survey author for not phrasing it better.
Another upside is nearly 63 percent of companies believing their team did an acceptable or excellent job in training or improving processes. We had an option for “we failed as a company to leverage downtime,” which no one selected, and only 37% said they could have done better. So it wasn’t a total loss and a reminder we can always do better.
About 40% total saw working from home as a valuable tool moving forward, and it’s not surprising that 42% will give out an occasional WFH pass for poor weather, sick kids or other circumstances. Only 18% are done with remote working from home. Thus, a year later, we (as an industry) still prefer on-premise business by a 60/40 split. That still represents a drastic attitude shift.
The pandemic did cause 58% of responders to implement layoffs/furloughs, with 75% of those firms indicating it was 25% of their workforce or less. That 35% kept employees out for six months or more is a sobering indication of the depth that businesses were impacted. And for those who made cuts, 78% targeted their service department, not at all surprising with the reduction of on-premise end-users.
The two-thirds of companies that have hired in the past year illustrate the contrasting reactions to the pandemic. With a strong mix of northeastern and midwestern responses, it shines a light on how geography played a huge role in how companies were able to weather COVID-19. This will bear watching in the coming months. Stay tuned for future surveys that will evaluate different aspects of how businesses were impacted by the pandemic.
