​Working from home has taken some getting used to.  I much prefer to be in the office surrounded by my colleagues, I enjoy the buzz and noise and we very much work in collaboration at Gordon Yates. 

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However, I feel grateful to still be working and I feel grateful for good health, and actually it’s wonderful to be able to spend more time with the children too!  I am also hugely thankful to technology, without Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype and WhatsApp, working life would be hard and lonely too.

I find it important to work to a structured day – most mornings I do a workout or a long walk and then I’m logged on and ready to go at 9am, with my desk looking neat and tidy and inviting (as you can see from my picture!) – that helps get me into work mode.  Most lunchtimes I do a workout with friends on Zoom, I need to keep moving, plus I need to step away from the laptop and take a proper break. Home-schooling is tricky whilst WFH so not much learning is happening, perhaps an hour a day, but these are unprecedented times and I need to be realistic with what one can achieve whilst trying to work!

My days are mainly filled liaising with our candidates and clients;  keeping in touch and offering advice and support, and of course touching base with colleagues too.  We are lucky that many of our temporary workforce are able to work from home. Many however, unsurprisingly have been let go and over the last few weeks myself and my team have been delivering that news and offering support to our temps on the phone and of course email
too. With the government furlough scheme we have been able to get those temps that have been let go, back onto our payroll.  This has been a huge
task and our payroll team have worked so hard to get this off the ground quickly and efficiently, our temps have been so grateful.  The hope is that once this is all over those temps will be able to go back to their long term assignments. 

I can’t wait for life to get back to normal for all of us.