Five years ago we were in the midst of a pandemic. And panic was a real thing. Many supplies were scarce, either because they were suddenly desperately needed, hoarding over potential need, or broken supply chains. The panic buying that occurs before a hurricane or blizzard happened everywhere at the same time. Some of the items in short supply were surprising, just like some of the workers determined to be essential were surprising. In addition to shortages, this caused higher prices for available products.
And maybe you remember that your workplace had a “fixer.” You know: the guy who managed to find workarounds. The guy who managed to get hand sanitizer made at a random booze distillery. The guy who found an oddball vendor or contractor to Get Stuff Done expediently.
Here’s the thing. Some of those workarounds became semi-permanent. A few because it turned out they were better than the way things had been done previously, breaking the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality. But a few are simply not. They remain because of a new “we’ve always done it this way” mentality. Your workplace is particularly susceptible to this if you had staff changes during COVID and the new staff legitimately don’t remember the way things were done in The Before Times. And hey, if it’s not broken don’t fix it, right?
It’s never wrong to evaluate business practices to make sure you are still doing things the best way possible — balancing safety, efficiency, and cost. This is a great time to look for things The Fixer fixed. Some of those fixes are no longer needed, are no longer appropriate, and should be discontinued.
“We’ve always done it this way” is not and never has been a valid reason to do something. Always look for why it came to be done that way and whether that’s still true.