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Lockdown Lessons and a Return to Work
August 26, 2020
Here at Darwin Gray we have successfully managed to adapt our working practices, utilising firm-wide remote working whilst keeping up with delivering regular virtual events.
Remote working has been one of the many challenges for businesses during the pandemic. Over the past five months, the team at Darwin Gray has adapted to working remotely whilst ensuring the high quality of our client care and work levels have been maintained. As well as ensuring that each employee had suitable equipment to work from home, we have also kept communication channels open, sharing frequent updates and encouraging feedback.
Before the pandemic hit, we had a full calendar of events planned for 2020. We have had to quickly adapt our focus to delivering those events digitally. Since lockdown we have successfully conducted virtual client meetings and court and tribunal hearings, whilst also delivering over 25 training webinars. A particular highlight was our delivery of a virtual half-day Mental Health Conference. Through our efforts, we have attracted over 600 attendees to our virtual events during lockdown. Given the success of these virtual events we suspect they will continue to be a mode of delivery of training and holding meetings for the foreseeable future, particularly with the expected increase in ‘everyday’ remote working.
Mental health has always been a top priority for us at Darwin Gray. With the impact of the pandemic, we have been sure to make this a key consideration in our remote working and communication practices. We quickly adopted to use Zoom and Microsoft teams, and by doing so we have been able to continue delivering our mentoring programme. We have also utilised these methods for out-of-hours virtual quizzes and social catch ups, which have been significant for team morale.
Darwin Gray’s adopted charity for 2020 is The Wallich, and the firm had big plans to fund raise for it during the year. We did not let the pandemic or the restrictive lockdown thwart our efforts in this regard, and during lockdown not only did we raise significant fund for this important charity through our on line efforts, but we also supported financially three other charities – being Yr Urdd, Ty Gobaith, and Hafal.
Providing frequent updates and keeping channels of communication open have been vital as the lockdown eased, and some of us have returned to the office. In July, we began a ‘phased’ return to work over the past few weeks, ensuring that Welsh Government guidelines were closely followed. We carried out a comprehensive risk assessment, which is frequently reviewed.
We anticipate that the impact of the pandemic will be felt for a considerable number of years, causing a potential lasting change in working practices. There are bound to be more flexible working requests in the future. If you would like to find out more about how to manage flexible working requests, please click here.
We also anticipate that employers will look to create more ‘agile’ workplaces to maximise the efficiency of their employees and the space they work in. Click here for more information on the benefits of flexible and agile working.
To speak to one of our experts today, please contact us on 02920 829 100 or by using our Contact Us form for a free initial chat to see how we can help.
