Lockdown 3.0 - what are we doing?

What are we doing?’  is a question many of us have asked ourselves over the past 12 months. With Boris having us in and out more than the hokey cokey, we don’t know whether we are coming or going, but closing the schools after 1 day of the poor kids being back, was a disruption that nobody had bargained for! 

After lockdown 2.0 finished in December, the majority of our team continued to work from home until Christmas. January 5th was the first time we were all returning to the office and would have been the first time we had seen each other in almost 3 months. We were all so excited and looking forward to seeing one another, but Boris had other plans! 

And so it begins...what now? What about the kids? How will we get everything done? 

New Phones 

We had a sparkly new phone system installed on Monday 4th, ready for the team to return to the office! The great thing about the new kit is that it is a hosted, cloud-based system.  

What does that mean? You may ask.  

It means that all of our team have a handset at home, hooked up to their broadband router, which allows them to call from our office line. They can also receive incoming calls to our office number and transfer calls to other team members, even though they are all at home.  

This makes life much easier for all of our team and also delivers a seamless service to our customers! 

Working Hours 

90% of our team have young children and partners who also work. During these lockdown periods, we give our team total flexibility in their working hours. Everyone here works part-time hours and we allow them to move around their working days and times to enable them to help with home schooling. We also encourage them to take time away from their screens and get out in the fresh air at least once a day 

Keeping in Touch 

It is easy to feel really isolated when you are stuck in lockdown. We use Microsoft Teams to send instant messages to each other throughout the day, as well as holding a midweek meeting using the Teams video calling function to enable the entire team to get together and see each other's faces and keep everyone informed on key business updates. 

What are you and your business doing this lockdown?