For most of us, the year ahead is going to be a lot better than the year we have just had.
In discussing this with business leaders in recent weeks as we plotted our own path for 2021, clearly optimistic themes emerged in their expectations. That being said, there are some serious hurdles to overcome.
Let’s not dwell immediately on the darker concerns.
One started her conversation by looking forward to the year-delayed Tokyo Olympics as the turning point. It’s true, the splintering of the world can just as easily be healed by a common event as it can be devastated by it, and as we learned in 2010, the Olympics are a terrific comforter.
While we’re talking about sports, two others pointed to the value of the resumption of in-person games, perhaps during the Canucks 2021 season or an open-air BC Lions or Whitecaps game with a limited crowd at first and full attendance post-vaccinations. Entertainment is missed as escapism, and no matter how much we attach ourselves to screens, one tech executive told me that the return of performances will be an important part of a rejuvenation of our community’s identity, much less our hospitality business.
A businessperson spends part, sometimes a large part, of a typical year on flights and in other cities at conferences. While no one wanted to say for certain this could be expected in 2021, they were crossing fingers that there will be sufficient immunity – and a way to prove it – to encourage travel and out-of-town experiences (and inbound travel) to spur renewal.
Mainly, what one hears is the general but not full-fledged need to get people back in the workplace to collaborate and create and into restaurants to make deals over meals. As the year ended, many told me (often on Zoom) that Zoom had been a blessing but was peaking as an instrument of generating business. People want to see each other in three dimensions, one told me. There is a good reason for an office, another said.
Those are, though, relatively minor matters when we consider the raising of awareness in 2020 about matters of diversity, equality and economic and social justice. Most of the executives I’ve talked to about these matters point more to the United States than to our challenges at home, but it is worth noting the general tone is one of hope in accelerated progress to provoke stronger representation and a turned corner on many forms of discrimination across industries and in the boardrooms.
On the matter of the Trump-to-Biden transition, it might not be surprising to learn many business leaders admire the economic performance of America and predict that the president-elect will be mired in the pandemic for some time with heavy fiscal obligations.
The challenge with macro-economic information is that it can shield the problems of certain industries. Most economists predict a numerically strong performance of the economy this year, with a clawback of much of what was lost in 2020, but the executives I’ve spoken to stress the need to get into the weeds before concluding all is back on course. They don’t want anyone to miss the many holes that COVID-19 has carved. They want a very slow fading of subsidies, for sure.
But it has been revealing to detect an improvement lately in the confidence business leaders have that senior governments are broadly receptive to the perspectives of their community. The country might have been heading into a recession under indifferent governments when the pandemic struck, but they suggest the coronavirus has been a wake-up call for the federal Liberals and provincial New Democrats. It is far from a love-in, but the strain of the first few months has largely abated with hopeful signs that government realizes it needs the success of business and cannot further impede it.
Where there are concerns – and these are quite public – are the questions about competitiveness, about lip service the country pays to innovation, and about how the successes of remote work might draw Canadians to opportunities abroad or draw talent pools abroad to displace local employment. Several told me in recent weeks they worry that our immigration imperative will stall while travel is stymied. Although there is general relief that the rebuilding was not a total revamping of the economy, I heard executives say their workforces did not want a stinting of climate change combating.
Their most pressing point in the weeks ahead is the largely hidden economic impact of a tired, worn, haggard workforce and its declining mental health. They confide that the demonstration of resilience has masked a worrisome psychological toll. They know we have at least three or four more months of hell as we await vaccines and endure the protracted conditions of restriction, and they don’t know what to do. •
Kirk LaPointe is publisher and editor-in-chief of BIV and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
