All hail the mighty business owner. They forego the security of a monthly salary to follow a dream. They have a vision and are brave, committed and diligent in bringing it to life. In doing so, they create jobs, serve their communities and they are role models of endeavour. Pretty strong stuff. 

In the corporate world, we all get paid every month whether we do a good job or not. Not so for business owners. Even when they do a great job, they might not get paid. This is the risk they carry and they do it anyway. They have their hearts in it and it is about more than profit: it is about purpose and pride. They have hand-picked every employee and feel responsible for them. That means that often they create what we in the corporate world may find so desperately elusive: a culture of deep connection and care.

Business owners build the next version of Australia: many immigrants who land here and find their home country qualifications aren’t recognised start their own business, working at it with the resolve that is a well-known theme in the Australian immigrant story. And many Australians rely on business owners for their own income: small businesses and family enterprises employ nearly half of Australia’s workforce. They are brave, yes. And they are vulnerable.

Because when crisis hits, it hits this group hardest. Any restaurant owner who has closed the doors in the last few weeks will you tell you that. No guaranteed redundancy payment for them, like there might be for corporate wage earners. No redeployment support or notice period. Three weeks ago, they had an income. Today they don’t.

I’ve worked with thousands of business owners throughout my career, and I grew up in a family business. It is impossible to overstate the difficulty facing them because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The shame of laying off staff will stay with them forever. And these lay offs could be costly to Australian communities: unemployment at higher rates for longer periods threatens the social cohesion we take for granted. 

It is critical that business owners avail themselves of help, right now. Sometimes, owners don’t want to ask for help because they’re ashamed they can’t work it out on their own. They’ve been proudly self-sufficient and can’t imagine how it might be to rely on anyone else. Sometimes, business owners are just too busy running the business to actually sit down and work out what help is available. And sometimes facing the terror is too much to bear: to talk about it might actually make it real. All of these reactions are understandable.

Whatever this crisis brings, it is in everyone’s interest that business owners get the support they need to keep going. Many will adapt and thrive in these new conditions, finding opportunity that didn’t exist a month ago - such is their ingenuity (and as some clever clogs once said, if you’re skating on thin ice, you may as well tap dance). But many are struggling, through no fault of their own. Help is available. If you are a business owner, ring your banker and ask for help now. And look into the various government support packages. For those of us who are still employed and earning, all that spending on takeaway and extra household goods from our local outlets is important and, frankly, not such a hardship: we WFH Zoomers will have to find some other adversity to complain of when we tell our grandchildren about the Great Pandemic of 2020.

Yes, all hail the mighty business owner: our support of them may just make the difference for us all.