There's no sugar coating the impact COVID lockdowns have on the retail sector.
Those working on the shop floor have to contend with reduced or lost income while the doors remain closed.
And it's not just the monetary loss retailers have to manage during a lockdown.
Mental health and team morale are also impacted.
According to Beyond Blue, in the 2019-2020 financial year, the organisation supported 273,845 people via the Support Service.
Meanwhile, overall contacts to its support services increased 42% from the previous year.
So, how does Cotton On Group CEO Peter Johnson keep team morale up in a global team of 20,000, when different countries, or even different states, are experiencing different levels of COVID restrictions?
"We spend a lot of time talking to our leaders," Johnson told Ragtrader.
"We connect with our 30 global leaders every week.
"We talk to our people and every time we connect we share where our team are at, what the morale of the country is like, the consumer sentiment and the sentiment of our team.
"You do forget sometimes that different countries are at different stages of this, and even within countries there are different people who have different circumstances at work and at home that you need to consider.
"So staying connected is so important," he said.
Johnson added that these connections to the global team has helped the business navigate the pandemic across the 20 countries it operates.
"We have really powerful, strong relationships within our teams that have been built up over a number of years and I think that's another thing that's held us in good stead as we've gone through this last 12 to 18 months, just how connected are resilient and how strong those relationships are with our teams.
"We pride ourselves on our people-first approach to business and we have genuine belief in our talented global team but the pandemic has taught us how important those relationships are and how staying connected to those teams is so critical," he said.