After almost 20 weeks from the official start of lockdown we are all trying to find our feet whilst welcoming children, families, and colleagues back to our settings. It hasn’t all been plain sailing and as a dad, a husband, a son, a sibling, a friend and a CEO, I’ve had a few responsibility hats to wear and, to be honest, on reflection I’ve got lots wrong but I believe I have also got many things right...subject to being told otherwise.
Like many people, having worked right through from Christmas, during a period where the intensity of work has at times been a little overwhelming, you simply fall into what needs to be done and you humbly ‘crack on’. Having support around you, a great team and your health puts things quickly into perspective and support for me came from my family, my team, many sector colleagues, and our private equity partners and board.
In the time many have been on furlough (if you still are), a female African elephant would be one-third of the way through her pregnancy, a goat would have just given birth, a tiger mother would already be tending to her month-old cubs and a mouse could possibly have had several litters!
Let’s face it, it’s been a long time.
No one is completely immune from the impacts of the pandemic, and the consequences of Covid-19 lockdown will be fairly significant for the majority of people, even if we don’t see it now. So, we must be mindful of how it manifests itself in those around us in the months to come, in our homes and in the workplace.
While the effects will be felt and perhaps weighted more toward certain generations or age groups, we shouldn’t assume things like loneliness will be reserved for the elderly locked in care homes or without companionship, guilt will only be experienced by working parents unable to balance parenting and working from home, resentment from teenagers unable to meet with friends at an age where building those all important social relationships is huge, confusion from young children unable to see grandma and/or grandad, or overly cautious and worried baby boomers who were unable to see family or had to shield for health reasons. A collective responsibility to support every generation is going to be necessary.
Supporting teams
As leaders in our own businesses, bringing people back to work means we have to be capable of providing support and help to our teams. We have to be prepared to support employee wellbeing in new ways, ways we are perhaps not trained to handle to the extent it may be required.
We need to know our teams are ready and able to do what they do best and keep our little ones happy and secure while navigating new approaches of working. We have an obligation to ensure our teams are supported physically and emotionally as best we can. For Bertram, introducing some free additional ‘Wellbeing’ support through our Smart Hub Employee Benefits portal is just another way we are working to address this.
Similar to many other businesses, before re-opening Bertram Nursery Group SLT have delivered some fantastic online training, webinars and Microsoft Teams calls with all nursery leadership. Rolling out new procedures, policies and documentation and guidance which they then roll out to their own teams returning to work and some with those remaining on furlough. Care has been taken to bring people back who were ready to come back, while identifying those who would benefit from remaining on furlough for now.
Once each site is signed off as ready to open again, by the SLT, my CFO and I hopped in our cars and visited each setting within the first week of opening. Some may see this as a risky and unnecessary action, but our teams managed our visits incredibly well and we were not exempt from any hygiene protocols when entering site. With social distancing, low surface contact and strict hygiene rules we were able to get around our nurseries and speak to returning teams with ease. We found the feedback from teams following these visits was well worth the time invested in doing so, and outweighed any perceived risk, as small as it was.
We asked simple questions such as, how are you? Did you enjoy furlough? (which certainly broke the ice with most), Are you happy to be back? How are your children and parents? How do you feel the training we provided helped you to settle back in? What could we have done better?
In almost every conversation we had, it seemed we had done a pretty good job on most fronts. Although we tripped up on the occasional communications piece, which we admittedly got wrong in the early weeks of closure and furlough, one thing that was clear with resounding consistency was that our colleagues were delighted at being back at work. Having a purpose and seeing their children again was very important to their mental wellbeing.
The fear many had built up in many people’s minds that their children would be hugely unsettled had quickly dissipated as they saw the majority of children settle back in with ease, despite changes in environments and restrictions to contact with friends due to the requirements of safer play groups.
Future challenges
As we move through to the new English and Scottish school terms, we are acutely aware of the work ahead of us as room numbers are set to increase. We carry a huge burden of responsibility to ensure we continue a safe and hygienic operation and avoid future transmission as Covid-19 cases continue to fluctuate across the UK.
But at the same time, we have to see more bookings and revenue so that our teams can return from furlough into secured jobs. As an essential service we can only provide this if we see a return to sensible and sustainable levels of profit.
Therefore, to assist, funding needs to continue at correct levels to ensure we can maintain our operations with lower levels of occupancy into the new year and help cover increased overhead costs such as cleaning and hygiene. This cannot be overlooked by central and local government if they are to avoid more nursery closures.
We recognise we are not on our own and to all our colleagues and friends working toward similar goals, good luck and all the very best from Bertram.