Always Expect The Unexpected

16 July 2020

Whilst most of my team here in the North were preparing for our ‘go live’ date in April for many months (7 to be exact), I myself had been working towards making it happen for over two years. So whilst it’s reasonable to conclude that watching our planned launch fall by the wayside in mid-March was a big disappointment (which it was), at the time it felt like things were moving at such a pace with our preparations for what was to come, that there really was very little time to dwell on it!

Fail to plan, plan to fail

Thankfully, as a leadership team, we had exercised good judgement in planning and testing our remote working capability a couple of weeks prior to Lockdown. So when the time came to pull the trigger and close our doors, we felt ready for what was to come. In the weeks that followed, the attention of our CSD’s and CSM’s naturally turned very quickly to their clients and making sure they were there to support them through the unprecedented situation they found themselves in. Whilst there’s no doubt not every business will survive the repercussions of the impending financial crisis, the support coupled with the identification of much-needed cash generative solutions, will no doubt ensure many of those clients will survive. I’m very proud of how every one of my team rose to the challenge, all whilst dealing with their own personal stresses and strains of Lockdown.

one team, many talents

We must also recognise the other important roles people in our team have played during this period – those in business support who have adapted to new ways of working and taken on additional work, our payroll team who have worked around the clock to get CJRS claims out of the door, and those taking professional qualifications who’ve had the added frustration of delayed examinations to deal with. Everyone really has played their part. And whilst our team has dealt with supporting our clients and business so admirably, it was, and still is also important the team themselves felt supported throughout the transition – whether that was a simple phone call, a video call, a whatsapp message or weekly online team meetings, it was important to us that we were inclusive and everybody felt included – and I sincerely hope we managed to achieve that.

on the other side

Alongside all of this planning and the many decisions that had to be made so quickly, a big part of our work as a team on the Exec Board was to make sure we made sensible and well thought out commercial decisions to safeguard the business in the short and long term. These decisions are often difficult and challenging, but are all always taken to ensure our ‘one business’ mentality puts us in the best possible shape ‘on the otherside‘ of this terrible virus.

As we now move into a new period of returning to a degree of normality, there’s a lot to look forward to as we evolve as a business and go from strength to strength in cementing our arrival into the marketplace.

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