Ways of Work - Finding New Ways to Get Things Done During Lockdown in the UK and China

Hi everyone, hope you are having a wonderful day today, welcome back to my channel!

I'm Yuri O, as in 'O my gosh, I never thought I would miss my office!'

Topic Today: Ways of Work - Finding New Ways to Get Things Done During Lockdown in the UK and China

Some people are defined by their work, others need the trip to and from work as a time to think over the days events, and while some folks really need the routine that getting into the office provides.

In short, some people live to work, while others work to live!

Whichever side you are on, you will likely have been affected during the pandemic. In recent times, work for many has been incredibly uncertain and while things have looked somewhat bleak, many businesses big and small have embraced changes and strives to make the best of what is a decidedly tough situation.

Across the UK, companies have scrambled to utilize technology to change the way that they run their business. While larger multinational companies are used to holding conference calls and Skype calls, smaller domestic businesses rarely had a need to use online communication to keep things running.

Naturally, during lockdown and at a time when the vast majority of non-frontline workers have been furloughed or required to work from home, the way forward has been to incorporate video calling and online meetings, using for example Zoom, Microsoft teams and even WhatsApp, to avoid unnecessary travel or face-to-face meetings.

Additionally, companies with multiple locations have taken to holding a larger number of Webinars in order to keep staff up to date on the latest news regarding the company, or to carry out training and development courses too.

Retailers have had to move quickly as well, with physical stores only just reopening, many chains and brands were thrust into bolstering their e-commerce presence, with many having to strengthen mail campaigns, and launch products online and via TV ads as opposed to holding sales events and product launch events at shopping malls.

China, too, has had to adopt.

Typically, ‘meetings, meetings, meetings’ would preclude some workers from actually getting as much done, but nowadays Chinese companies have worked hard to change this by allowing for more meetings to take place via WeChat and Tencent Meetings, a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent, with over 1 billion monthly active users; and other App such as DingTalk, an enterprise communication and collaboration platform developed by Alibaba Group.

As I touched on, China has been conducting a tremendous amount of business via WeChat groups prior to the pandemic, however these group chats are generally less formal and usually littered with cute stickers and the occasional hongbao, which means "Red envelope or red packet", is a monetary gift which is given during holidays or special occasions such as weddings, graduation, holidays, festival or the birth of a baby, etc.…. Followed closely by another bunch of cute stickers to say Thank you, or Xie Xie in Chinese.

With an array of features, familiar to almost all users, WeChat has been a preferred tool for many companies in China, whether its for engaging with employees, promoting products, or simply to share documents with each other. There are other Apps that are good for companies to promote products and raise brand awareness during lockdown, such as Little Red Book which Chinese version of Instagram, and Dou Yin which is Chinese version of TikTok.

Another interesting trend is that lots of Chinese companies run live streams to promote and sell their products online, often utilizing successful Wang Hong, which is the Chinese term for an internet celebrity. The Wanghong economy is the nascent Chinese digital economy based on influencer marketing in social media. Chinese Wanghong attract the attention of Internet users, which can translate into profit through e-commerce and online advertising.

That's it for today, how have you or your company adapted during the pandemic? What tools have you found to be most beneficial and something that should remain even after the pandemic has run its course?

I'd love to hear from you, please feel free to share in the comments! I appreciate you, if you haven't subscribed yet, take a moment, click the subscribe button, because this channel is all about China, genuine insights from me and my team, who have all spend time living in both UK and China.

Take care my friends, have a wonderful day, and I will see you soon!

Yuri O x