At long last we have a number of furloughed members of the team returning after their time away from the business, including the sales and marketing teams so we can start to get back to growth and creating opportunities once again.

Apart from winning a few lovely contracts in the first few months of 2020, since March it has been pretty quiet on the new contract front as we’ve battened down the hatches, concentrated on beating Covid19 and supporting those clients that remained open.

I’ve got to say that the Furlough system has been tremendous and has ensured that all of the staff have been looked after. At its height, we had 220 members of the team on Furlough, now we’ve somewhere between 60/70 and only await the return of schools and a few offices to get back to pretty much 100%.

We have to thank those who worked through it all. Their loyalty, bravery and the way they just ‘got it done’ was an inspiration to everyone. Simply amazing individuals and we’re so lucky to have you with us. We understand that Coronavirus hasn’t gone away and still presents a threat to the health of many but we all now see the signs of recovery in the economy and that’s exciting. Our fantastic administration team have coped with complexities in new ways of paying and recording as rules changed but deadlines didn’t and the Operations Team kept going in the face of the unknown when it would have been easier to hide away.

Of course, things have changed, the way we clean, what we clean with and even behaviours and new habits are now so important as we ensure that clients premises are safe and low risk for their returning staff and visitors. There’s little doubt that this will be the ‘new normal’ for the time being and who knows how things will look in the next 12 months but with the people we have we have confidence in our future and can look forward to success and creating new opportunities as we move forward again.