Through the Crisis, She Sees Hope

Today, looking back on those unsettling times, Sunny Guo, Sales Engineer at GF Casting Solutions in Suzhou (China), is thankful that her family members are all safe. The crisis, despite its dire consequences, has actually given her new reasons to be optimistic and hopeful about the future.

In her work before the pandemic, Sunny used to liaise with customers through meetings and presentations. She also travelled often in southern China to attend conferences and events for suppliers. The pandemic has limited the way she works, Sunny says, but her passion for the job is growing nonetheless, because being with a responsible employer like GF gives her emotional support.

For Sunny, so far the biggest impact of Covid-19 on her daily life has been psychological – isolation can create anxiety and loneliness, even if you are staying with close family members. Social interactions, such as those with co-workers and clients, suddenly became precious.

“The most upsetting days were before I went back to work in February. When stuck at home in Suzhou, social media is your only connection to the outside world, but it’s also where you find lots of depression about the worsening news,” Sunny says. “Once I was back, talking and working with colleagues in the office helped a lot. I was able to focus on something else other than the pandemic. In this environment I started to believe that the worst would pass and normality would return.”

Her sense of belonging and security was strengthened by the thoughtfulness of the company in protecting employees. For example, when she could not find any surgical masks on the market, the Business Unit China was able to gather thousands of them to meet the daily needs of all employees. The company also prepared ample hygiene products such as alcohol wipes and sanitizer. At the workplace, disinfection was frequent so workers felt safe.

“The crisis brought out the best in an employer,” Sunny says. “The management of GF Casting Solutions China in Suzhou is doing a splendid job and that gives me a lot of confidence. I never wanted to go to work this much.”

Today all the virus preventive measures are part of the new normal, which also includes conducting business remotely in most cases.

Now Sunny rarely meets with her clients in person. She says that video conferencing systems such as WeChat Meeting are popular, highly efficient, and handy, and allow her to strengthen the customer relationship. However, they do not provide the confidentiality some presentations may require. But on the bright side, Sunny sees an improvement of personal relations with her clients, as the pandemic is a very empathetic topic among people. “I learned that a client’s wife was among the doctors sent to the frontline in Hubei province. A college friend of mine was too, so our conversation easily went beyond usual business and became more personal.”

She says that relationships between co-workers have also become smoother because people are more united than usual. “I guess we all just realized that we’re lucky to be healthy and safe. A lot of other trivia doesn’t bother us as much.”

Given that cases of infections are still rising quickly in many parts of the world, Sunny believes that uncertainty will remain in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, she’s hopeful that the Chinese market will continue to pick up, maintaining the momentum of recovery.

Most of Sunny’s clients are carmakers, many of whom were in a sluggish market even before the pandemic. Car sales dropped 16.9% year-on-year in the first six months of 2020, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

But as the economy has gradually reopened since March, and local governments have rolled out subsidies to spur consumption, car sales grew 11.6% over the previous year in June 2020, the second positive growth month in the past 11 months. This is good news for suppliers like GF Casting Solutions. Sunny says their sales in June were higher than last year’s level (+17.5%), and overall she’s optimistic about the future. “We can’t make up for what’s been lost (in sales), but I’m confident that we will come out better, both as people and as a company.”