How Some Businesses Are Handling The Impact Of School Closures in N.B., N.S.
With public schools in New Brunswick closed for two weeks starting March 16, and Nova Scotia public schools and daycare set to close for two weeks after March Break, business owners and employees who are parents are bracing for impact.
Susan Cormier, who co-owns Euston Park Social and CLOS restaurant in Moncton with her husband Gene, said running a business together has made things easier.
“We’re able to kind of tag team staying at home with our son during this difficult time…you have to rearrange your schedule, and make sure you do all your meetings on conference call, because we have to always have someone at home,” she said. “It’s challenging, but we’re more fortunate than others that don’t have the ability to stay at home.”
With none of their employees being parents, staffing concerns are reduced as CLOS plans to remain open with measures in line with directives from the provincial government.
The provincial government ordered bars, restaurants with buffet and other non-essential services to close, but restaurants like CLOS are allowed to remain open with restrictions.
RELATED: N.B. Announces List Of Businesses And Public Spaces That Must Close
“We’re putting a cap on our reservation numbers to make sure we don’t have too many diners in the restaurant at one time. We also just launched a take-out menu that will be starting on Wednesday so people will be able to pre-order meals to take into their office or home for both lunch and dinner in hopes that we can still offer an experience with CLOS but people can eat it somewhere they feel more comfortable,” Susan said.
In addition, more hygiene measures have been added, including laminating menus so they can be washed in between guests.
“Everyone’s health and safety is number one, so we completely understand that not everyone’s going to want to come and dine in a restaurant,” Susan said.
But she says, as many establishments try to offer take-out services and online deliveries, “it’s key just to think of different ways – where you want to shop – to support local businesses right now. Because it will be quite devastating for many, I’m sure, if there’s a long period of shut down.”
For Natalie Davison, who co-owns Marrow Marketing, having her two boys at home will make it harder to do business even if she can work from home in Moncton. But she’s not too worried.
“While it’s not ideal that my kids are home, ultimately I’m not alone in this,” she said. “I’m not concerned if I’m on a video call with a potential client and my child walks in because they have the same situation happening. I think responsible businesses and responsible people are going to understand if the person on the other side has to tend to their child.”
Davison pulled her sons out of school a few days earlier because of concerns that not everyone was self-quarantining. She said she’s concerned about elderly relatives and others who are more vulnerable to the virus who may come in contact with her children.
“I’m really focused on what I can do to flatten the curve, meaning stop the spread from being so rapid that we overload our health system and then unable to care for our most vulnerable people.”
Davison hopes people in the business community will be more understanding in these abnormal times.
“We’re real humans having real human experience right now, we’re just going to have that humanity and realize that businesses are just groups of people,” she said.
RELATED: Several Halifax Area Restaurants Shut Down Due To Coronavirus
The overall impact of coronavirus has pushed businesses in the Halifax Regional Municipality to take steps in line with directives from the provincial and federal governments.
Popular restaurant The Canteen in Dartmouth “will be closing temporarily” starting March 17, it announced on its Instagram page Monday.
Many organizations have also made the move to allow employees to work from home, including the Halifax Chamber, whose staff will begin working from home this week to help “flatten the curve,” said president and CEO Patrick Sullivan.
“Employees at these organizations, we don’t want them coming to work if they’re sick, and in fact, we don’t want them to even be at work if they can stay home,” he said. “We need people to stay home and we need employers to recognize that people can work from home in many cases almost as easily as they can work at the office.”
While students in Nova Scotia are currently on March Break, returning to two more weeks of no school and daycare will undoubtedly affect businesses, he said. Sullivan hopes to see businesses be understanding about the situation of parents who may not be able to share childminding responsibilities.
Chambers Of Commerce Push For Relaxed Policies
David Duplisea, the CEO of the Saint John Region Chamber of Commerce, urges calm as systems and processes are in place to mitigate the spread of the virus.
“If we all work together and avoid panic, then I think we’ll have better outcomes,” he said.
But both he and John Wishart, the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Moncton, said it’s important that businesses big and small have a contingency plan, including for staffing. The Saint John chamber has resources online to help businesses prepare.
“We would encourage those businesses that do have the capability of allowing their employees to work from home to do so in this situation,” Wishart said. “The other point is we would encourage business owners to use some compassion and respect for their employees, if there’s a way to give them personal time, sick days, vacations days, to get through this.”
Wishart added that as business activity is expected to slow down amid efforts to contain the pandemic, companies may not need as many employees to work.
“It’s an opportunity to give those that need to be home a chance,” he said.
Wishart and Duplisea acknowledge that businesses in the retail, hospitality and tourism sectors are particularly vulnerable. The impact of efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus have them concerned about how small businesses will fare.
“We are concerned that businesses are going to start going through cash flow problems this week and next week particularly, and debt management too,” Duplisea said. “Some in the hospitality sector, if they ordered food, it has shelf life, too. So as that comes in, suppliers are expecting to be paid, so it will be almost like a domino effect.”
That’s why the Saint John chamber is urging businesses to allow relaxed payment and HR policies.
“Perhaps allowing people a little bit more time if they need it, in order to make some of their short term cash commitments,” he said, adding that the chamber is also urging businesses to allow workers to work from home and take sick leave without a doctor’s note.
“It’s trickle-down, too. If the schools are closed, that means the children are home, people that don’t have the ability to work from home, how do they access daycare? Who’s looking after the children? So there’s lots of different challenges that surface, it’s not just a matter of keeping your offices open,” Duplisea added.
So far, the reactions from businesses have been positive, he said.
“Everybody realizes everybody has to pull together and try to help one another out on this,” he said. “In most cases our members have already put in place travel restriction policy, not only internationally but some are trying to look at it domestically as well.”
The Saint John chamber is also urging the federal government to relax HST and income tax filing deadlines and said a stimulus package from the government would be helpful. The Halifax chamber said in addition to those measures, it’s urging the city of Halifax to delay commercial tax payments.
“There’s a few things…slowed HST, slowed payments to the government, in particular, commercial taxes are going to be due to the municipality of Halifax in the next two weeks. It doesn’t seem to me to be the right time to get a restaurant to pay their commercial taxes,” Sullivan said.
He said while changes to EI have made it easier to access for workers, it would be faster to allow employers to redistribute tax payments to their employees.
“If employers can continue to pay sick leave, pay salaries to people that are off, that’s likely the fastest way for money to get into people’s pocket, so we’re advocating for government to do that,” he said.
In the meantime, Duplisea and Sullivan encourage consumers to keep supporting local businesses by ordering take-out, delivery, gift certificates and just spending at local businesses in general.
RELATED: All New Brunswick And Nova Scotia Public Schools Are Closing Down