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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1273655
16 BCBUSINESS JULY/AUGUST 2020 READ THIS With Leading Meaningful Change: Capturing the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of the People You Lead, Work With, and Serve, Victoria- based organizational development (OD) consultant Beverley Patwell builds on many of the themes that she and her late professor and mentor, American OD pioneer Edith Whitfield Seashore, established in 2006's Triple Impact Coaching. The use-of-self theory that the two employed as a performance model for TIC is stretched out here to become a larger process for organizations hoping to transform. "The only constant in modern life is change," Patwell writes. Figure 1 Publishing 272 pages, softcover, $24.99 • ( the informer ) G O F I G U R E As bad as things have been, Dickson and YYJ were better prepared than most for the "black swan event," as he calls COVID-19. Victoria is one of only two major airports in Canada that are completely debt-free (the other is Saskatoon), which has allowed Dickson to spare the 55-person organization any layoffs. "I went to our board of directors early, and I said, Look, if I had 10 things to do in terms of cutting costs, layoffs would be No. 10," he explains. "We are also taking advantage of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, which is in place until August. We're doing everything that we can." Until airline traffic picks up, much of the non- aviation revenue that airports rely upon— especially concessions and parking—won't come back. For bigger airports such as YVR—where more than half of traffic comes from the U.S. and international markets—this period in the wilderness will be even longer. The Vancouver Airport Authority has had to lay off 25 percent of its 550 employees, with traffic at YVR projected to drop to as low as eight million passengers this year—down from over 26 million in 2019. It will be an enormous challenge for YVR's incoming CEO, Tamara Vrooman (who declined to talk to BCBusiness in advance of her July 1 start date), and throws the ambitious master plan inherited from her predecessor, Craig Richmond— with 75 major expansion projects on the books, slated to cost $9 billion over the next 20 years—up in the air. "International traffic for YVR was huge, and that's where their growth was, particularly in and out of China," notes David Gillen, director of the Centre for Transportation Studies at UBC Sauder School of Business. "[YVR] is not going to grow nearly as fast as it was growing before. They might take a look at some of those projects and push them off into the future. Because the growth projections are simply not there. They're not going to need that capacity at all." In the middle of 2020, few are willing to predict how quickly things might turn around for aviation. But accord- ing to Gillen, passengers should expect a fairly profound impact on the flying experience, simi- lar to airport security post-9/11. "After SARS, I flew into Hong Kong, and they had thermal scanners there, right after you got off the plane," he says. "If there was any indication at all [you were sick], you got put into a secondary treatment room. That's the intelligent approach. To the extent that we don't do that, I think it's going to be a very slow comeback." Each and every airport pro- cess will have to be redesigned in the wake of COVID, from check-in to security screen- ing, pre-departure screening to boarding; in early June, the International Civil Aviation Organization adopted new guidelines that could add up to two hours of pre-departure time for passengers at some airports. Just like safety is part of the culture of aviation, Gillen says, "hygiene now is going to be part of that culture as well." Geoff Dickson, for one, is up to the challenge. "Immediately, you're going to see much more visible cleaning and sanitiza- tion and hand sanitizers," he says. "You're going to see much more visible physical separa- tion and queuing." He points out that many of the changes we associate with 9/11, includ- ing full-body screening, didn't happen overnight, but down the road he expects more biometric technology at YYJ to recognize and isolate the health screening needs of a post- pandemic world. "The experience will be different, but ultimately we'll be judged relative to other airport experiences and how we make customers feel," Dickson says. "We're trying to do our best to make this new travel experience workable." • Making It Work When COVID-19 hit, B.C. businesses had to get very creative, very quickly to stay afloat— and lend a hand. Here are just a few of the ingenious shifts we saw across the province this past spring by Melissa Edwards At least 700 3D PRINTERS have been pressed into service to make face shields and ear savers for health workers through the BC COVID-19 3D Printing Group Companies producing shields for the group or independently include Drop Manufacturing (Nelson), Hollywood Fabricating (Prince George), LNG Studios (Vancouver), Packright Manufacturing (Langley) and Vital Manufacturing (Surrey) Virtual private wine tastings– featuring pre-delivered tasting bundles–hosted by Summerland-based Okanagan Crush Pad within the first 6 weeks of the shutdown After restaurant supplier Legends Haul launched a meal and grocery home delivery service in March, retail clients grew to 50% of the Coquitlam-based company's business, with 2,000+ home deliveries a week Peregrine Retail Design Manufacturing expanded Plexiglas production at its Burnaby facility to 30% from 5% , producing 3,000 new protective shields for offices and retail outlets by May 15