ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Much has been said about the traumatic impacts of the pandemic on small businesses. Not so widely reported is the personal toll it has taken on SME owners who have proved so crucial to keeping economies afloat during the crisis, writes Hartley Milner.

Every morning when Julie Pennington boots up her computer a message flashes briefly across the screen, concluding with a smiley face emoji. It proclaims Taking Care Of Business Means Taking Care Of Yourself and Julie has seized upon it as the mantra by which she runs her catering company.

“Where I got this pearl of wisdom from, I cannot say; it just popped into my head during a period when I felt at my lowest and in real need of some inspiration,” Julie said. “I programmed it into my computer as a daily reminder of the importance of protecting my personal health, at all times but especially at times like those we’ve all had to endure these past two years.”

Julie was talking to ECJ about her mental health struggles steering her company through the perfect storm of stressful challenges that arrived with Covid. “I made many mistakes and went to hell and back,” she said. “I just hope my story makes other small business owners stop and think.”

The former hotel manager started her business in her hometown of Warrington in the UK in 2009. From catering for mainly wedding receptions, celebrations and corporate events, she built up a client base also comprising hospitals, restaurants and school cafeterias. By 2019, it was one of the largest caterers in the region, employing 25 full and part-time staff.

Crisis management

“In catering, everything has to be perfect … the customer will soon tell you if it’s not and there will likely be a reputational price to pay,” she said. “Making sure all goes to plan brings many pressures and frustrations every day, and not a few sleepless nights. But you are able to absorb all this because you are doing something you love.

"When Covid arrived, the challenges were off the scale. Suddenly, the survival of the business – everything I had worked so hard for over the years – was in jeopardy due to circumstances beyond my control.”

As panic swept the country, what began as a trickle of event cancellations became a torrent. Julie had to refund deposits and other upfront payments running into thousands of pounds. “Where we were able to push back events already scheduled, we did but we were also seeing a dramatic tailing off in booking enquiries, which greatly added to our worries,” she said.

“Then in early 2020 came the first lockdown. The hospitality sector was decimated. Fortunately, we still had a few of our public service contracts, which had until now accounted for 40 per cent of our business, and our cash reserves were strong, but they would only sustain us for so long.

“My role now was that of crisis manager. I shut myself away in my office, searching for government and local authority emergency funding for the business and my employees, negotiating with our suppliers, landlord, utility providers and making insurance claims for lost event revenue.

"In addition, I had to find ways to adapt the business to generate emergency income streams, but we could not plan for the long term because we had no idea when the pandemic would end. Well, as we now know, it was to be stop-start for two years and we are still not entirely out of the woods with Omicron.”

Julie hopes that by scaling down operations, including reluctantly reducing her labour costs, she now has the business on a sustainable footing and primed to respond to an upturn in her sector “whenever that may be”. But to get there she had paid a high personal cost.

“At first, I tried to remain optimistic and even cheerful for the sake of my employees and family, but that was far from how I was feeling deep down,” Julie said. “It came to the point where I actually welcomed putting on a Covid mask because I felt it hid how stressed out I was getting.

"Running a business, I had become adept at troubleshooting. What I was not prepared for was so many troubles coming at me so fast, all demanding immediate attention. It was as though I was in a hurdle race where for every obstacle I got over several more were put in my way.”

Personal cost

As the challenges piled up, so did Julie’s anxieties. And the more anxious she became the longer the hours she put in to cope with the workload. She continued: “My body clock was thrown into chaos; I slept only fitfully at night, if at all, and found myself nodding off at my desk during the day, from which I would awake with a jolt, cursing myself for wasting time.

“I could see what was happening to me. The feelings of helplessness, self-doubt, of being overwhelmed and alone were all pointers that I was approaching burnout. But I only pushed myself harder. Then I found myself thinking the unthinkable … I started to ask myself what was I doing, what’s the point of it all, would the world end if the business went under? I felt a wave of relief sweep over me, but at the same time it shocked me that I was thinking this way.

“Now, with my thoughts in disarray and no longer able to concentrate on anything, I had no choice but to take a step back from it all, to catch up on lost sleep and get my head together. It was just a few days away with my family doing family things, but it gave me a chance to reset, to work out a more strategic approach to what I was doing, to be proactive rather than reactive.

"I defined my priorities, got better organised, set daily targets, delegated more and, crucially, allowed myself time to unwind each day, including taking more exercise. These were all things I should have done from the off. It was still tough going, but now I was working at a pace I felt I could sustain.”

Julie, who is writing a book about her mental health struggles during the pandemic, added: “Small business owners are going into 2022 facing ever-rising energy bills, taxes, inflation, labour costs and ongoing supply chain issues … on top of which Covid new variants could pop up anytime. It’s been a hard lesson, but my experiences have taught me that running a company is more than putting in the hours … it’s about working smartly and that means looking after your health.”

SMEs make up 99.9 per cent of businesses in the UK, 96 per cent of which are micro-enterprises employing no more than 10 people. The wellbeing of their owners will, therefore, be critical to the recovery of the British economy.

Worryingly, a study looking at the mental health of small business owners following uncertainty due to the pandemic shows they are far from fit for the coming fray. Of the 500 employers polled, 63 per cent admit to having deprioritised their mental wellbeing because of the pressures running a business and 96 per cent say they keep their stress ‘bottled up’. Nineteen per cent feel like giving up running their business every day.

More than two thirds (68 per cent) feel they have nobody to talk to about their problems, with 43 per cent saying it was because no one understands the pressures they are under. A further 35 per cent do not want to burden others with their worries.

Bottling up stress

Kris Ambler, workforce lead at the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), which commissioned the research, said: “We know how testing the past months have been, especially for small business owners who have had to adjust to new business challenges. The fact so many business owners have deprioritised their mental wellbeing in favour of financial matters and business success is alarming.”

BACP accredited counsellor Michelle Seabrook said: “Whilst the survey results may appear shocking, they are not entirely unexpected. Running a business can be very stressful. I would encourage SME owners to form a ‘wellbeing plan’ akin to a business plan, focusing on what your wellbeing intentions are for the business; how you will support your own and your employees’ mental health.

"It is unsurprising that business owners prioritise financial success, rather than their wellbeing. It is important to remember that without the owner and the employees, there is no business! A healthy business is not just about having a healthy balance sheet.

“Getting therapeutic support for stress does not mean waiting until crisis point. Those that have a strategic, proactive approach to managing stress find it easier to intervene early, which means that signs of impaired wellbeing are recognised before they become problematic. This is where accessing independent, qualified therapeutic help can be the game-changer. By investing in support for your mental health, you are investing in the future of your business.”