Revamp as growing firm builds on lessons of tragedy
AFAMILY business that suffered double tragedy through a son’s suicide and a husband’s deteriorating health and dementia, responded by rebranding and transforming their Southport-based firm.
Mother and son Roz and Ryan Armitage were faced with endless difficult decisions about the future of their thriving healthcare recruitment agency last year.
Dad Les had played an integral role in building the business prior to his illness and his other son, Tom, was an important part of the management team with a natural talent for sales and training.
Roz and Ryan decided to focus on restructuring the business previously known as 247 Professional Health and rebranded to Tezlom as a tribute to Les and Tom.
Ryan said: “It was absolutely devastating, as anyone who has lost a child, brother or close family member will know. Grief is overwhelming.
“It’s an actual physical pain and it’s difficult to function properly.
“We had time out of the business and couldn’t have coped without the enormous support of our friends, my wife Charlene and our staff in the business.
“They are truly amazing and not only did they support us both personally in so many ways, they carried on running the business looking after our agency workers and clients.”
The family have always been open about Tom’s death by suicide, as they felt strongly that it wasn’t something to hide and that the only way to deal with it was in a positive way: to learn about it, talk about it, to encourage other people to talk about it and to raise awareness of mental health issues and addictions.
“Addiction is part of human nature,” Ryan said.
“We all know of someone who is addicted to either alcohol, drugs, gambling, nicotine, chocolate or food. Social media is the next biggest addiction.
“We have learned so much over this last year, and while we will never have all the answers we do know that addiction is a disease and it can’t be cured without both professional help and the support of family and friends.”
One year on from the death of his brother Tom, Ryan has spoken out about the family’s experiences in a bid to encourage others to tackle their own and their employees’ mental health struggles head on.
He said: “The events of 2018 were truly devastating for our family. At the time, all we wanted to do was to run and hide from everyone and everything but we knew that this was bigger than us, we weren’t unique and we soon realised that many families were being torn apart and were struggling to cope with mental health issues and addictions.
“I looked very closely at our business and what it meant to us and our employees and realised it was our family values that set us apart from others in the industry.
“Through these testing times, I’ve learned firsthand just how important mental health maintenance is and so I want to equip our team members to better understand the importance of looking after both themselves and those around them.
“With that in mind, we began to implement various schemes and strategies into the working week to give our staff the opportunity to take some time out, relieve stress and hopefully feel happier all around.”
Changes at the company, which has franchises throughout the UK and supplies care assistants, qualified nurses and support workers to clients including care homes and hospitals, are far from limited to the name.