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Survey shows uncertainty among businesses, employees

CLOVIS — Businesses and employees surveyed locally have their own reasons, but they all share uncertainty as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

The Clovis/Curry County Chamber of Commerce discussed a pair of surveys during its board meeting last week — one covering area businesses and a second on employees.

The survey of 149 local businesses was taken between March 26 and April 3. Of those surveyed, 30% reported revenue decreases of 90% or more, and more than half had at least a 50% decrease. The businesses had laid off or furloughed 414 people combined.

In other findings from the survey:

• About 60% of businesses had no employees working from home, while 16% said at least three-quarters of their workforce was working from home.

• The two biggest problems were cashflow and the inability to plan.

• In order, the three most important ways governments could help were financial assistance, lifting restrictions and providing ways to acquire personal protective equipment.

The Chamber is collecting information for a second phase of business surveys through Sunday at:

clovisnm.org/

business-impact-survey

A separate survey on employees of businesses indicated anxiety over health trumped financial concerns.

The survey was conducted April 6-11 with 411 respondents, including 86 New Mexico residents.

Of the New Mexico residents:

• Respondents were 87% female, 11% male and 2% preferring not to say.

• The majority are either still working at essential businesses (35%) or newly working from home (27%). A fifth of respondents were furloughed or unemployed.

• If restrictions were lifted the following week and employees were asked to resume normal face-to-face interaction, 74% of respondents would be nervous or afraid and 5% would either refuse or quit.

• The two greatest sources of anxiety were personal or family health (43%), followed by financial challenges (22%) and interaction with people (15%).

• The things employees valued the most were money and benefits (35%), followed by a positive work environment (22%), job security (19%) and flexibility (19%). In one of the survey’s biggest gender divides, job flexibility was the third-most popular answer for women while no men selected it.

• The full survey noted health or family health was the top concern for 61.75%.

• Among those furloughed, fired or laid off, financial challenge was the greatest concern at 35%, followed by family health at 23%.

• If face masks and social distancing were required for the foreseeable future, a majority reported some issues. While 41% said there would be no impact on job performance, the remainder said it would be difficult (38%) or impossible (8%) or that they just wouldn’t want to work if they had to be around people (13%).

• A majority of respondents, 59%, believed they would return to the same number of hours or schedule once the pandemic ends, but 18% wanted the flexibility to work from home at least part of the time.

• The most important characteristics for a supervisor to have were communication, compassion and understanding. Communication was the top trait mentioned by men (33%) and women (27%).

 
 
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