Written by:
Joanna Swash
CEO
Moneypenny
No one saw this coming. A virus sweeping the world in a mere matter of weeks, reducing economic activity and providing everyone, individually and professionally, with their own new challenges.
At Moneypenny we have policies in place for all manner of likely stressors on the business, but we did not see a global pandemic on the horizon.
As the situation developed our joint concern was being able to maintain an exceptional level of service for our clients hand in hand with ensuring the wellbeing of our staff. As the Prime Minister delivered his statement on the 16th March we had already prepared our response and were moving our people to home working team by team. We started on the 2nd March to send a few teams to trial working from home, learn from that, and iron out those gremlins. Then, just 3 weeks later we managed to get all our 1,000 strong workforce fully-equipped and working from home, thanks to our amazing IT teams working through. Not everyone has the resources, I understand that, however, working with 20,000 businesses, small, medium, and large I think what we have learned over these past four months is worth sharing.
So, lesson one, be prepared. Yes, we need to learn from this pandemic and prepare our business and our people for such another instance. But we need to prepare to return to work. Being on the back foot is a costly business. Many businesses have reopened already but if you are not yet open make a conscious step-by-step guide and be agile where possible. We are regularly surveying our employees to ensure we have a hybrid model that works for us all. We have one-way systems, lunch plans, cleaning stations, floor stickers and a welcome back pack has been created and very well received.
Lesson two, trust your people. Culture is hugely important to us at Moneypenny. It is something we value extremely highly but you need to trust the people that you employ, otherwise, why employ them? Even with this at the core of everything we do, we noticed that productivity actually increased during lockdown, with people doing that little extra at the start or end of the day. Having said that, we also had to tell people to ‘go home’ as they found it difficult to switch off.
Which leads me to wellbeing. We already had a whole library of wellbeing, health and communication tools at our disposal, from weekly mindfulness and daily yoga classes to dog walking groups etc and we use Workplace by Facebook but we still had to adjust them to the situation, make them virtual but still connected. We sent out vouchers to teams to share a virtual treat pizza lunch and sent out weekly updates from the management team, sharing our business plans but also our own take on things – proving that we were human too.
And finally, and maybe I have covered it above. Lesson three, we all crave human interaction. Looking at our business stats, call volumes increased by a third and the average length of a call increased by nearly a quarter. People want to speak to people, especially in uncertain times. They want the answers now, but they also want reassurance. Just as you have been battling, so have your clients. It can make all the difference to your business. We undertook a survey last year and it showed us that 45% of calls result in a new enquiry (opposed to other communication methods) which equals £304bn of new revenue to UK business, proving that we still like to do business the new old-fashioned way.
All forms of communication have their place, don’t get me wrong, indeed our Live Chat volume and length has increased hugely during lockdown and continues to do so. Live Chat has managed to fill the gap between the ease of email and the speed of phone calls. In times of panic and high stress, live chat has kept people connected and relieved some of the pressures faced by customer service teams. Live chat is an efficient way for customers to get quick and easy solutions to their problems and queries, it’s no surprise to see questions that may have been previously handled over the phone using live chat as companies saw a big increase in customer service calls and adapted to the new government guidelines and social distancing laws.
However we do it, and whether it is for work or pleasure, we seek out ways to communicate, to connect to another person or business.
We have all learned valuable lessons over the past four months, there’s no doubting that. What matters now, as we begin to see the other side, is what we take from them and how we apply them to our future plans. We live in a connected world and whether that’s connecting with friends, team members, or clients, it is the constant for the way forwards.
