By Kyle Hall, CEO of INEO
Last New Year’s Eve, all liquor sales across British Columbia were shut down at 8 p.m. by a public-health order aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19. Good intentions notwithstanding, the province waited until December 30 to issue the order, which gave restaurants, bars, and liquor stores less than 24 hours to make necessary adjustments. One of the unintended consequences was that retailers saw customers arrive earlier in the day and in greater numbers than usual as consumers rushed to make their liquor purchases before the cut-off time.
This could have been avoided if the provincial government had given businesses adequate notice of the impending order instead of springing it on them at the eleventh hour. If the provincial health authorities learned anything from this, though, the lesson seems to have been forgotten. The government recently reinstated mask mandates in all indoor public spaces—once again with less than a day’s notice given to the retailers who would ultimately be responsible for enforcing the mandate.
To complicate matters further, the mask announcement came immediately on the heels of the news that, starting in mid-September, B.C. would be rolling out a vaccine-passport program that would affect restaurants, fitness centres, and a number of other businesses. Adding the complexity of enforcing a mask mandate onto businesses when they had just started to think about how they were going to enforce the vaccine mandate has caused widespread anxiety in the retail industry.
Adherence to new rules takes time
The manner in which the government has announced its mandates has been fundamentally flawed. The vast majority of retailers are generally in favour of measures designed to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, even when those same measures affect their livelihoods. New restrictions are understandable—even to be expected—as COVID-19 cases trend upwards again. However, businesses need more than 24 hours’ notice in order to come up to speed with these broad shifts in policy.
Store owners and managers need time to properly brief staff on protocols, and to gather and implement any additional resources they might require in order to adhere to new rules. A good example of this is proper signage at the front of the store to inform customers of mask requirements. When the rules change with little advance notice, putting up signage that contains up-to-date government messaging can be an extra challenge for retailers.
An increase in retailer anxiety
Most customers are aware of the ever-shifting rules, understand the rationale behind them, and are compliant with them. Occasionally, however, someone will react poorly, even aggressively, to being told they are unable to enter a store because of mask mandates. Retail employees generally have little to no training on how to handle customers who become belligerent or hostile, and this can increase anxiety among frontline staff.
Given adequate time to prepare for new mandates, retailers can prepare employees to defuse these potentially confrontational situations by arming them with the necessary messaging and a clear plan for what to do if a customer refuses to adhere to the restrictions. This is also where having proper and up-to-date signage can create a buffer between employees and irritable customers. When customers can clearly see the rules upon entering the premises, that can take some of the burden of enforcement away from employees.
Government has a duty to businesses
The pandemic has been tough on businesses of all sizes, but—faced with lockdowns and reduced capacity—small businesses in particular have been left feeling abandoned and unsupported. It doesn’t help that these restrictions are mandated with no advance warning and little indication of what’s coming next.
The government has a duty to provide updates with sufficient notice, and to give businesses clear messages so they can quickly adapt to changing regulations. Public health departments can help alleviate much of the stress on retailers by providing them with such resources as easily reproducible, public-facing signs and graphics to provide clear guidelines for their customers. With mask mandates having flip-flopped multiple times during the past six months, officials also have a clear responsibility to advise business owners on appropriate enforcement of restrictions.
Public safety is of the utmost importance, especially during a health crisis that seems to be constantly changing and evolving. By continually rolling out new mandates with little to no prior communication, the government is only making things tougher on retailers and the workers who are on the frontlines of this pandemic. To ensure the successful adoption of COVID protocols, and to protect retail employees from needless harassment, governments need to work with the retail industry.
After a year and a half of dealing with uncertainty, last-minute regulatory changes add an extra layer of unnecessary difficulty to the challenge of keeping a business afloat during a global pandemic. That difficulty could be avoided if public officials would provide retailers with clear signage, go-to messaging, and more than 24 hours of notice to adjust to the latest version of the new normal.
Kyle Hall is the CEO of INEO, a retail technology and digital advertising company that services businesses throughout British Columbia.
