As most of South Africa goes into lockdown, we have made a decision as a business to do the same and commence with a work from home policy until 15 April 2020.
Our (well-sanitized) offices will remain open with one or two staff members for various deliveries and to field enquiries, and we are extremely well set up to carry on with remote working so as to ensure that there is no disruption in our service to you as clients and stakeholders.
While I understand the extreme gravity of the situation in which we find ourselves, I would just like to caution against panic and rash decisions. While the fatalities of Covid-19 will be statistically very small, the ramifications of the economic downturn this could cause will be more far-reaching and ultimately end up causing extreme long-term damage and will continue to do so long after the last case of coronavirus has been cured.
We are all responsible for our own systems, Tractor is a close-knit team of 35 amazing, devoted and loyal individuals – and each one of these individuals have 3,4 or five other people that rely on their dedication to our business. So, your decision to move a campaign, cut a budget or, even, cancel the whole campaign has far-reaching implications all the way through these various micro-economies.
I am not telling you what to do and how to run your business, what I do want to highlight is that we all need to rally together and remind ourselves that corona is a short-term problem that can be fixed, but fixing a broken economy takes a lot longer and will have far more casualties.
To this end, Tractor will commit to helping any small business that is being directly impacted by this coronavirus – if you are a small independent shop or restaurant that is staying open so that people can get takeaways or a food truck that has had to change your business model to deliver frozen meals – get in touch with me personally and I will see how we can communicate your message for free to as many people as possible.
I know we probably can’t help everyone but if we all do our bit then this economic tsunami might be a little more manageable.
We need to lean into each other, and we need to show that we are a strong, resilient and collaborative community.
Let’s try and get through this with as minimal collateral damage as possible.
Simon Wall
CEO – Tractor Outdoor
moc.roodtuorotcart@nomiS
