A RESEARCH study by Edith Cowan University (ECU) will be used to help the State government build guidelines and frameworks to deal with the impact of COVID-19 on WA's regional businesses.
ECU School of Business and Law professor Kerry Brown, who is helping facilitate the research project, said the basis of the research was a survey targeting WA businesses, with all of the data due to be collected by the end of July.
"We want to know what would help, so we have targeted the survey carefully towards businesses and what their needs are," Ms Brown said.
"Our heart is with micro businesses as well as small and medium enterprises because they fall off the radar, so we want to be able to have that voice in our survey.
"We are also keen to go postcode by postcode so we can provide more detailed and specific information about WA's various regions."
ECU has been utilising the networks of third-party organisations such as chambers of commerce, local government and the Town Team Movement to connect with WA businesses and gain their feedback.
Ms Brown and ECU School of Business and Law professor Ferry Jie facilitated a workshop discussion on regional business growth strategies at the Dowerin Do-Over in Dowerin last month.
Participants were asked six questions about the challenges regional businesses were facing due to COVID-19 and some of the innovative solutions that had been found and could be implemented in the future.
"We've been attending activities that various associations put on so that we can meet face-to-face with the State's business people or connect over the internet with them to do workshops," Ms Brown said.
"We're also offering several of our own workshops such as 'Networking for Introverts' and 'Ten Tips for Business Resilience' to businesses to connect with our stakeholders so that we can then ask them to fill in a survey - so it's a grassroots approach.
"The other part of our project will be putting forward a policy piece to the government to show what can be done to help businesses right now and into the future."
Ms Brown said interim results from the workshops and survey had already highlighted several challenges for regional businesses which had been amplified due to the impact of COVID-19.
"Things like a lack of connectivity, lack of access to skilled labour and a lack of accommodation for workers in regional areas are common themes we're finding in our feedback," Ms Brown said.
"Interstate and international travel restrictions have given WA's regional tourism sector a huge boost, however that boost has also created its own challenges with a lack of workers and some difficulties in the supply chains for those regional businesses to support the additional tourists in their towns."
p If you are a business owner and would like more information or to get involved email fleur.sharafizad@ ecu.edu.au
However Ms Brown said COVID-19 had also created some benefit for regional business, with a rising cohort of people choosing to relocate to the regions due to an increase in their ability to work remotely.
"I think that an amenable lifestyle in the regions is something that can be capitalised on because people have portable jobs and they can work remotely," she said.
"For example, some people who have family in WA but have been living in the Eastern States or elsewhere are using the opportunity to come back to the regions and are bringing virtual jobs with them."
With the survey results due in August, completion of a final report isn't due until November.
- If you are a business owner and would like more information or to get involved email fleur.sharafizad@ecu.edu.au