Coronavirus challenges ignite camaraderie among businesses

THE imminent school holiday break loomed as an ideal opportunity for many tourism and hospitality venues to rebound after a torrid few months due to the coronavirus shutdown.
All that changed just before 3pm on Saturday.
Many weeks of planning and anticipation were thrown into chaos when the Andrews Government announced that a planned relaxation of current restrictions for hospitality venues would not go ahead from Sunday night as planned.
For Bellarine Peninsula business owners Lyndsay and David Sharp and many others, it meant they had to quickly cancel stock orders, dining reservations and re-roster staff.
“When I heard the news on Saturday, it was disappointing. We had our venues geared-up to re-open and had been re-training staff in anticipation of welcoming back more diners,’’ Mrs Sharp said earlier this week.
“Now we’ve mothballed those plans for another few weeks, hopefully for July 13.
“We just hate disappointing people, but community health and safety comes first. We understand and respect the decision.
“It is what it is and we will deal with it.’’
The Sharps employ more than 200 people across their venues which include Leura Park Estate, Curlewis Golf Club and Jack Rabbit Vineyard.
Keeping their staff motivated and engaged has been a priority since late March when they could no longer come to work.
“From the onset of the shutdown, staff engagement and communication was a priority,’’ Mrs Sharp said.
“Aside from regular updates from our HR team, we started an internal staff Facebook group with the aim of keeping everyone connected, motivated and making sure everyone was okay dealing with their own individual challenges that came with the shutdown.
“We tried to do everything possible to get them all through this, and are glad to say almost all of our 216 staff are still with us and busting to get back to work.’’
Mrs Sharp said the collective pride of peninsula business owners and managers had also shone through during the tough times.
“There has been great camaraderie between operators, bouncing ideas off each other as well as some great collaborations, especially surrounding Mother’s Day.’’
As for what happens next, that’s anyone’s guess.
“It’s going to be a new frontier. We need to have an awareness that things aren’t the same… so it will be interesting.’’
Mrs Sharp said the federal government’s JobKeeper program meant many businesses had been able to retain staff who may have otherwise had to leave and find work elsewhere in different industries.
“I think the federal and state governments have been amazing and we’ve been grateful to have direction from them – like everyone else in Australia, they have had to develop policy on the run and the way they’ve handled it all has been nothing short of brilliant.’’