Lockdown has taught lessons about running our business

NO MATTER how confident we all felt about our business continuity plans pre Covid-19 I believe we have all learned important lessons and new skills from this pandemic.

From the announcement Boris Johnson made when you were only allowed to go to work if you could not work remotely from home, we all had to learn and adapt very quickly.

We learned that effective technology was key to our business and that we needed to speed up our VPN – an unfamiliar term pre Covid-19! Our old copper line was frustratingly slow. Within a week, we transferred over to a new fibre link. The results were incredible. We could all now work as efficiently from home as we could in the office.

We also had to learn how to install and operate on our laptops and home computers Zoom, Skype for business, and Microsoft Teams so that we could attend meetings and court hearings remotely.

A central part of any business is its staff and keeping them safe. We learned that our staff had different reactions to Covid-19. Some had relaxed attitudes whilst others were very anxious. Neither reaction is right or wrong. The important thing we learned was to listen to our staff and to act upon their concerns. It became clear that we had to close our reception as we would no longer be able to have face-to-face meetings.

We updated our website and e-mail footers to communicate this. Communication was key in these early days. We created a staff WhatsApp group so that we could communicate quickly and easily.

Via this group we announced that the normal working week Monday to Friday 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM would not exist during lockdown. Instead, we were trusting our staff to do their jobs at times and in ways that suited them. With the more relaxed informal working pattern, formal office attire was no longer necessary and casual clothing has been the order of the day.

We learned that keeping in contact with staff was essential.

To this end, we created a Strava exercise group where we are aiming to exercise from here to the European

Court in Strasbourg between us. We have also had a light-hearted Zoom quiz night and we gave Amazon vouchers to our staff as a way of thanking them for all their efforts during this difficult time. Our staff are amazing. This pandemic has only served to highlight this.

Keeping our clients content and looked after during lockdown has been essential. Most of our clients have responded positively to meetings by video. Many have said that it is far more efficient for them, as they no longer have to travel to our office. A number of our clients in any event do not live in South Wales and are already accustomed to dealing with us by telephone and e-mail.

During lockdown there has sadly been an increase in incidents of domestic violence and issues with child contact. Some parents have used Covid-19 as a reason not to allow the other parent to have contact with their child.

On a positive note, some of our clients who have been forced to be together 24/7 have reconciled.

On a sad note however we have also had one case involving a suicide during lockdown.

As family lawyers we have learned to expect that as soon as the lockdown restrictions are lifted properly then we shall see a huge boom in new divorce and separation cases in the same way as we do normally in January when people have spent Christmas together.

We have learned that it has been essential for us to keep up with the developments in the court system. We have been inundated with detailed guidance from the higher judges. It is now perfectly common to have court hearings by telephone or video and we have learned how to conduct these efficiently. However, a number of cases involving live evidence have been adjourned. This will have a dreadful knock-on effect for the courts when they reopen properly because there will be a massive backlog and logjam in a court system which is already struggling to cope with demand.

We have learned how to navigate our way around the government assistance being offered to businesses. The Welsh Assembly Government very early on developed a userfriendly online questionnaire enabling businesses to assess what relief was available to them. Of the relief available, furloughing, business bounce back loans and deferring VAT seem very simple options.

Going forward, we have learned some really positive lessons and new skills from this recent lockdown. We have learned that a strict 8:30am to 5:00pm, Monday-to-Friday working week is not essential, and we can work efficiently from home at least a few days per week. This has the benefit of reducing traffic, air pollution and improving the work/life balance. Another lesson learned for us during lockdown is that we need to accelerate our strategy to become paperless/paper-light. When we emerge from lockdown we shall do so with a very robust business continuity plan, and an improved sense of efficiency and work/life balance. I do however look forward to lockdown being over. Nothing will ever replace the social interaction and camaraderie with work colleagues – plus I consume too many calories working from home.

■ Melanie Hamer is a director at Wendy Hopkins Family Law Practice