Assignment Task

Over the past two years, thousands of companies and whole industries have undergone massive shifts in how they do business as they were forced to rapidly adapt to the logistical impacts of COVID-19. Impacts vary widely across industries and countries, and they include (but are not limited to), depressed economies (locally, nationally, globally), fluctuations in the stock market, delays or stalls in shipping materials, sick or deceased workers, inability for workers or customers to congregate in groups, higher instances of mental illness, and the list goes on.

Many companies, including small and independent family-owned businesses, had to close permanently. Some industries, such as airlines, hospitality, leisure, and restaurants were massively impacted. Aspects of the cultural sector, particularly live theatre and music, experienced similar effects. Education at all levels was strongly affected, but was able to shift and adapt to the new reality, overcoming huge logistical challenges.

Your assignment is to choose an industry that has been negatively affected by Covid, and create a small locally-owned fictional company within that industry. Companies in different industries were each affected differently; some moved workers to home, some had massive layoffs, and some had to source supplies from new distributors because of supply chain issues.

This country’s economy is starting to reopen, but Covid-19 is still an issue so safety precautions must be maintained. The owner of this business is trying to decide if they should bring everyone back into a regular on-site working schedule, and they’re asking you to recommendation report covering the pros and cons (advantages and disadvantages) of each scenario. Some things to consider are: the cost of paying everyone’s salaries (if they have been laid off), the cost in supplies and labour in cleaning and sanitizing the workplace, the logistics of maintain the government’s social distancing guidelines (ie. number of people allowed in a building at one time), the anticipated increase in income, etc. Sending workers back into the workplace can be both positive and negative for them (financially, mentally, emotionally, etc, so you should also note and compare as many of these factors as you can think of, but you don’t have to create actual numbers of costs or a detailed business plan. In the Conclusions/Recommendations part of the report, you will make a conclusion about whether you think the company should have everyone return to work.

You will need to specify which country your company operates in (choose one that you’re familiar with and has English on their government website), and reference that country’s current Covid-19 restrictions and guidelines in composing your Report. *Note that some countries have not yet reopened their businesses, and the mass majority of workers are still at home.

Here are two student example scenarios:

1. Careways For Moms Fitness Inc (South Africa)

Kind of services – we provide fitness training – Pilates and strength training for pregnant women and post pregnancy programs.

Biggest impacts felt from the pandemic were: the company had to close during lockdown. Employees were laid off, we lost income/customers, and had to move our business location.

What I hope to achieve in writing this report: weigh the pros and cons between (Option 1) staying in current location (smaller, noisier, less safe, cheap rent, established clientele) or (Option 2) moving to a new location uptown (newly renovated, larger space but significantly more expensive, safer area, residents are more affluent, but have to create new customer base).

2. New Horizon Gaming, Bangladesh

This is about a pioneer gaming company in Bangladesh, creating the first and a huge community of gamers all across the country. The office has a lounge area for the public to come and play our games, eat snack, and create a fun community. At first, the company was thriving with love from the locals and then, Covid hits- the company had to shut down. But in spite of the tragedy, the love from the community encouraged the company to operate online and in a short time, the company got huge and expanded countrywide rather than being local. 

Options for the future: the economy is reopening and there are many different possibilities and projects to pursue to take the company to the next level. Should we (1) reopen the physical office or (2) keep everyone working from home and focus only on creating an online community?

Option 1: more expensive for renting space, purchasing new furniture, equipment, requires more maintenance

Option 2: less costly, but produces less investment in building local community, harder to get immediate and direct feedback on our games in development

Research Skills

We will cover best practice skills for conducting research and introduce the use of documentation to ensure ethical sourcing. As you conduct your research, keep track of everything! You will be expected to have at least 2 quality sources (one can be the country’s current government guidelines regarding Covid, must be in English) that you will cite within your report and include in a separate reference page at the back of your report. The other two sources can be general or specific background information about how that industry or that country has been affected, or what are some of the challenges in returning people to work during a pandemic. These 3 sources will referenced in either the Introduction or the Facts and Findings.

Here is a template for the report. Copy the following information into a new document to help you fill it out.

Introduction (Purpose/Introduction/Problem),

Describe the history of your company (location, what industry) and what happened to it during the first 2 ½ years of Covid (list at least three negative effects). Use your creativity in creating your story! Employees may have been sick/passed away, supplies may have been cut off due to shipping delays, customers may have stopped coming in because of lockdown (if it’s a restaurant, retail, etc), or other factors. Expand on these topics by adding detail; the number of employees and the type of business will dictate some of these effects. You do not have to create actual numbers such as income loss, but you might describe how each element of Covid affected different parts of the business, producing a ripple effect. Because we’re not actually going to create numbers detailing the cost of sending everyone back to work as opposed to keeping them home, this section is very theoretical.

This is the outline of the paper: it establishes why the report is being written and the context. Then, explain to reader what to expect in the report – you will be comparing two different options for reopening your business and the criteria on how those options will be weighed.

Infographic

Include at least one infographic to support your report. If the infographic is about your industry in general, place it in the Introduction. If the infographic is about your company and its reopening options, it should go into the Facts and Findings (main body of the report). You can find an existing one or create your own, but using one you find online must have the URL (web address) cited in the reference page. It can provide supportive relevant data on Covid or how industries have been affected by it. This infographic must be properly labelled like in the example below. On the same page as the infographic, there must be text that supports that acknowledges that infographic and supports its data

Your research on how certain industries have been affected by COVID–19 provides the groundwork that develops your recommendations; this is the largest section of your report. You are including information to persuade the decision-maker reading your report that your recommendations are based on sound research and your credibility as a researcher and writer. Here is where you are considering at least two options for reopening your business and at least three criteria for each option , which will vary depending on the type of industry and the country. For example, if you run a restaurant, you could be discussing options between catering/online pickup, in-person dining, or a hybrid of each. You can weigh criteria such as available labour, where you think the market demand is, and which options are logistically easiest or most affordable. It also needs to be clear which criteria are the most important (for example, if you were purchasing a new pair of headphones and you were comparing price, comfort, brand, and features, some of those criteria would be more important than others).

The options should be listed under different sub-headings, like so:

Option 1: Running only in-person dining

• Describe scenario in detail and three criteria to measure it.

Option 2: Only doing catering and takeout

• Describe scenario in detail and the same three criteria. Although the structure of the data is identical to Option 1, vary your word choice and sentence structure to make the reading experience more interesting and engaging.

Option 3: Hybrid of both Option 1 and 2

• Describe scenario in detail and the same three criteria. Give equal space to all three options to maintain balance and clarity.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The conclusions summarize your findings and lead logically to your recommendations for the company’s best path forward. For example, if employees have been working from home, should the company send everyone back to work? You get decide if it is financially worth it, and go into detail justifying your decision. No new information should be introduced here.

If you are using one heading of conclusions/recommendations, separate your conclusions from your recommendations: conclusions first, followed by recommendations. Use a list to highlight your recommendations and express willingness to provide additional information if it is required.

A narrative citation with paraphrased material might look like this:

• Doe (2018) studied the swimming habits of marine animals in tide pools.

Narrative citation with quoted material might look like this:

• Doe (2018) argued that “many of the creatures in tide pools love to swim” (p. 280).

In contrast, parenthetical citation includes the author’s name in parentheses rather than within the sentence.

A parenthetical citation with paraphrased material follows:

• The marine animals that inhabit tide pools enjoy swimming (Doe, 2018).

Parenthetical citation with quoted material would look like this:

• In contrast to the inhabitants of larger bodies of water, “many of the creatures in tide pools love to swim” (Doe, 2018, p. 280).