Small Business Owners (Virus Crisis)
- Thread starter MrMessi
- Start date
I am pretty much a 1 man company now and lost my main contract last week -given 4 weeks notice. I typically only employee people on short term contracts (1 year etc.) with a 2 week notice clause and renew their contract if business/contracts continue past the 1 year mark. The people I employed were incorporated themselves.
You sure are a rare one!
If only the average employer gave half a shit about their employees.
Leadership starts at the top, the boss taking a hit for the employees inspires employees to take a hit for the boss. That kind of loyalty and respect is a beautiful relationship and a very productive one too. You have to do what you can to keep the business whole, after this is over your company will be stronger than ever.
Most employers are small businesses and I think most do care about their employees. But there is only so much they can do.
When it comes to big corporations nobody cares about employees including fellow employees.
Small business owners dont have the perks of big businesses.
There are many loop holes and tax credits not to mention govt incentives and programs that arent offered to small business.
However, it seems that small business owners genuinely do care about their employees whereas the big companies treat you as a number.
Never compare a small business to a big business.
You’ve summed it up well. I am a small business that engages with a lot of much bigger businesses like banks, real estate companies, telecommunications companies and so on.
Generally speaking, they care about shareholders, quarterly statements and bottom line.
I have families that depend on me and employees that have shown decades of loyalty. I can tolerate a bad year much easier than my staff can, and I know a lot of small business owners that look at it the same way.
Paying my drivers and support staff their regular wages and offering interest free loans. If this lasts longer than 2 weeks, we will re-evaluate.
My staff is fairly small, we’ve split the day from an 8 hour day into two 6 hour shifts for the people who can’t work from home, so contact is at a minimum. Topping up the pay cheque’s to 8 hours a day. May float some interest free advances to some of the people with kids/mortgages if their spouses are not earning a regular salary. The “new” guy has been here 10 years so it’s a small close knit group.
The difference is that when you're the owner/leader of a small business, there's nowhere to hide. You are always very close to those that work for you, and both sides intimately feel the impact of management decisions on a very personal level.
In big corporations, management and staff rarely interact on a personal level. When shit goes wrong it's much easier for management to hide. As well, usually it's just staff that truly feel the negative impacts of tough business decisions - management typically remains insulated.
I am a shareholder and I lost 30% of all my money. I am happy at least somebody cares about me.
Yep, this is another way to do it, If people have some paid vacation days, why the employee should pay for work stoppage now. Take a vacation, Yes, this vacation will suck, but businesses lose much more money (in absolute and percentage term) than employees, so, employees should contribute too.
Indeed. It's also simply the result of big numbers. When a corporation employees thousands of people or is a muli-national organization, nobody has the time or resources to know everyone and care about everyone. Each department is full of people who are complete strangers to those in other departments scattered across different cities and countries, with new hires and people leaving the company on a constant basis. There are so many people that they become statistics. It really doesn't matter if Harry or Lisa does the cleaning nor what their personal story is... just make sure you hire them if they're qualified to do the job well. Management and most employees won't see them or speak to them anyway.
Thankfully I am in a position that if this goes on until late summer to early fall my company will be ok and so are all my daily expenses from mortgage, to insurances to pays and at that point I would have to re-evaluate.
Talking with a lot of small to medium sized company owners (10+ employees) in different industries a lot of them are in a situation that they would only be able to do that for 2 months. Considering it's also tax season and corporation taxes are due June 15 a lot of companies that are well run they put money aside monthly or quarterly for taxes every year.
I fully expect the federal government to either extend the tax deadline for companies or even provide very low or zero interest loans to us and hopefuly both. If they don't a lot of companies in many different industries will be in a lot of trouble.
Yeah, big companies are so cold hearted that the big banks are offering their clients 6 month deferrals on their mortgage payments.
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I saw some interviews with bar/restaurant owners. One said that his revenue is almost zero now and his landlord still wants the rent to be paid. Of course, the landlord probably also have financial obligations as well. Will the City of Toronto give him/her a 6 month deferral on municipal taxes?
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I saw some interviews with bar/restaurant owners. One said that his revenue is almost zero now and his landlord still wants the rent to be paid. Of course, the landlord probably also have financial obligations as well. Will the City of Toronto give him/her a 6 month deferral on municipal taxes?
This is the worst economic slow down I have seen in Canada.
The worst in my life, that I witness myself.
There are no numbers out yet, but this is worst than the 2008 financial crisis, and the Great Recession was suppose to be the worst since the Great Depression.
Just walk downtown. Everything is closed. There is no economic activity. Zero.
What is the Canadian economy? Most of it is services. If everything is closed, no services rendered or needed.
Then that ripple effect goes through the whole economy, otherwise known as the multiplier, but in reserve in this case. Of course the oil price collapses now. Sure seems like Uncle Vlad doing Grandpa Xi a favour to kick start that economy which turn will boost that other economy.
Canada must solve this health crisis first before things get back to normal economically. Therefore, we must adhere to expert opinion of when the outbreak of the coronavirus can be contained.
From what I have read, and you may have a different opinion, if everything goes well, then I believe it will be this year September at the earliest when things start to return to normal.
Whatever is left of the economy is whatever is left of the economy. The government is going to listen to the health experts, and they will be anal about it. They are trained to be that way.
So the government, must figure out the best way forward. Start giving people money just so that people do not starve. Or the government ignores the health experts and takes their chances.
Trudeau should ask one and only one question. He should not listen to anyone else except himself. He should ask, what would have my father would have done?
That is the right answer IMHO. Trudeau will start printing money and sending out the cheques.
The entire Western world could be heading in that direction.
They already started doing that for the banks, again ...
The worst in my life, that I witness myself.
There are no numbers out yet, but this is worst than the 2008 financial crisis, and the Great Recession was suppose to be the worst since the Great Depression.
Just walk downtown. Everything is closed. There is no economic activity. Zero.
What is the Canadian economy? Most of it is services. If everything is closed, no services rendered or needed.
Then that ripple effect goes through the whole economy, otherwise known as the multiplier, but in reserve in this case. Of course the oil price collapses now. Sure seems like Uncle Vlad doing Grandpa Xi a favour to kick start that economy which turn will boost that other economy.
Canada must solve this health crisis first before things get back to normal economically. Therefore, we must adhere to expert opinion of when the outbreak of the coronavirus can be contained.
From what I have read, and you may have a different opinion, if everything goes well, then I believe it will be this year September at the earliest when things start to return to normal.
Whatever is left of the economy is whatever is left of the economy. The government is going to listen to the health experts, and they will be anal about it. They are trained to be that way.
So the government, must figure out the best way forward. Start giving people money just so that people do not starve. Or the government ignores the health experts and takes their chances.
Trudeau should ask one and only one question. He should not listen to anyone else except himself. He should ask, what would have my father would have done?
That is the right answer IMHO. Trudeau will start printing money and sending out the cheques.
The entire Western world could be heading in that direction.
They already started doing that for the banks, again ...
