Although it’s only 3 months since we decided to close our office, it feels like years! We’re now putting plans in place to open it up again.
Thankfully, we’ve been able to adapt and continue trading through these turbulent times. And we still have plans to add to our team and bring new clients on board. To do this, we need to make sure our staff and clients are as safe as possible.
Before we get to that part, we want to say thank you to all the people whose efforts have helped us and others around the world during these unsettling times.
From key workers to our children, who’ve had their world turned upside down, nobody has been unaffected.
Now the lockdown is easing, we’re starting to look forward, and we’re excited to support businesses and the economy through a period of recovery.
A new way of working
While it’s still closed currently, in the coming weeks Hannah will be returning to the office.
Working in our daughter Amelia’s room for the last 10 weeks has been an experience we’re sure many of you can relate to…
Hannah will be the only one back in the office initially, so she’ll be super focused – and it’ll put an end to the kids Zoom-bombing client meetings. Like us, you might be one of those people that had a good laugh when it happened to this Professor live on BBC news, but now we can understand how he must’ve felt!
Despite the many challenges of working from home, there will be a lot of businesses thinking about giving up their office space for good. We don’t have plans to close our office completely, as we still want a base camp away from home.
Remote working has been on the rise for a long time though, and the lockdown certainly hasn’t prevented us from supporting our clients. It can have many benefits – something we’ll talk about more in a future blog post.
The main difference for Freedom in Numbers is we’ll continue with the flexibility to work from home or the office. Most of our team have a young family, just like us, and we know that life isn’t 9-5. We think that this flexibility helps keep our team happy, and that means our clients continue to get brilliant service.
Working safely during COVID-19
The Government has issued guidance on working safely during the coronavirus pandemic.
On our part, we work in a shared office building, which is cleaned regularly. There will be a weekly deep clean of the entire office. Also, we’ve made sure a supply of hand sanitiser is available for staff and clients.
Once we’re happy that the office is operating safely within the new guidelines, our Trainee Accounts Assistant Rachal will also be able to return to work there.
Supporting clients with our growing team
So that we can give businesses the support they need, we’ve been growing the Freedom in Numbers team.
Firstly, our accountant Gemma, who has been on maternity leave and is due back in August. Gemma has loads of accounting and management experience in the hospitality sector. To begin with, she’ll be working from home, eventually taking on clients of her own and supporting Rachal, our trainee accountant.
She’ll also be supporting our client manager (more on that shortly) in delivering outstanding customer service to our clients.
As we just mentioned, Rachal is our trainee accountant. In the 6 months since she joined us, Rachal has been a great support, especially through this lockdown period. She’s currently studying her ACCA exams and working on day-to-day bookkeeping for clients.
Could you be our next team member?
The next addition to the team will be our Client Manager. We’re just in the middle of setting up a recruitment page on the website and setting out the hiring process.
By growing our team, we’ll have the support we need to focus more on building the business. Our client manager will be essential in making sure we serve our clients in the best way possible and help us to build a great work environment.
If you’ve had experience in a similar role and like the sound of what we’re doing, keep your eyes peeled for the job advert coming soon.
Supporting our clients and the economy – what we won’t change
Our mission has always been to provide clear, concise financial advice to ambitious, growing businesses. This hasn’t changed at all.
We want you to have correct, up-to-date information when you need it. This helps you to make better business decisions.
We do this by helping you make the most of the best digital accounting tech on the market. It’s our job to keep on top of this moving target.
We do it using Apps that make both our business and our clients businesses more efficient:
We’ll go into more detail about how these apps can benefit your business in another blog. Where there’s a problem, there’s an app to solve it, but it’s all about choosing the right ones for your business and supporting you to take advantage of them.
Having the right technology and people in place means we can continue to support existing clients and new ones remotely. While we won’t be having in-person meetings until we know it’s safe to do so, communication is paramount.
With email, Zoom and the good old-fashioned telephone, we’ll support you to find freedom in your business.
