Lockdown Lessons

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the day the UK went into its first National lockdown. This changed not only how businesses, but how the world communicates and operates. The lockdown brought change and challenges that none of us could have imagined, especially within our lifetime, such as social-distancing restrictions, that required physical office and store closures across the UK.

To commemorate this, we wanted to reflect on our journey over the past year spent in lockdown, looking at what we have learned, how we have adapted and a few highlights along the way.

A new way of working

One of the biggest changes to come from lockdown was the abrupt shift to working from home. Our Team put in a huge amount of hard work and effort during this surreal time, to make sure our clients business continuity plans were met - from moving staff out of the office and ensuring working from home was possible.

The hottest commodities during lockdown - Laptops and toilet roll

Ok – we shouldn’t joke about the toilet roll shortage, as it was touch and go at times…. The shift to working from home brought an immense demand for laptops, to ensure that all businesses could remain operational. Supply was extremely scarce, and we still see the effects in the supply chain today.

Quote of 2020 - “You’re on Mute”

How many times have you heard (or said) this over the last year? For us, its countless!

Using technology as the only communication with colleagues, family, and friends, has been challenging. We no longer have the luxury of popping over to someone else’s desk to ask a question and receive an answer instantly.

Virtual meetings using Microsoft Teams or Zoom is undeniably here to stay, but we can’t wait to have meetings such as our client reviews face to face, with a cuppa tea and a biccy.

We turned 10-years old!

We celebrated our 10th Anniversary and honestly, it has been an amazing ten years of growth, learning, achievement, and transformation for us.

Lockdown meant we could not celebrate the way we had hoped with our clients, staff, and suppliers. Instead, we adapted and hosted the ‘The ITWORX UK Office Oscars’ on Teams, which was the perfect way to bring our entire team together after months of separation.

We made the transition to an Employee-Owned business

As our tenth birthday approached, our founders Philip and Jill wanted to mark this milestone.

We were in a strong position – financially stable, with a solid client base and a skilled and dedicated team. The change in structure aspired to bring long-term benefits and help attract and retain new talent, which is so important, especially in an ever-evolving industry like IT.

We already have a wide range of expertise at all ages and levels within the company that we listen to and learn from. By giving the team a say in how the business is run, we know our skills and contributions are appreciated.

Our business continued to thrive

Business objectives during lockdown, shifted from making profit to survival and we are very grateful to be part of an industry which hasn’t been as affected as others.

When lockdown began, we had a massive 42% increase in client ticket requests and our engineers managed to hit our SLA response time targets on 97.6% of tickets.

During lockdown, we also were accredited the Datto 'Blue Diamond' Partner Level, joining the Top 2% of Datto Partners Globally.

Life moves fast

We can’t believe how quickly time has passed. With a lockdown exit strategy released, we are interested to see what the future holds and how businesses will continue to adapt.