My Back To Business Strategy

By Mike Lloyd, managing partner of Haines Watts Swindon. Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors which has their office based in Old Town. Mike has recently celebrated 25 years with Haines Watts Swindon and has been managing partner for all but a few months of that time.

Summarise how Covid-19 has affected your business? 

We realised pretty early it wasn’t realistic that the UK would escape the virus. Once the first cases of transmission not related to travel started to happen in February it was clear that the cat was out of the bag.

We stopped doing face to face meetings early March and tested our working from home procedures before closing the office on March 18th. We are fortunate  that pretty much everything we do has become electronic so working remotely hasn’t hit us as hard as it has a lot of businesses. 

We have spent many hours just talking to our clients, holding their hands through what has been such a traumatic period for them. 

We've been supporting them by offering guidance on the various types of support available to them at a time when that guidance was changing daily! That has been alongside doing the things we would normally be doing for them. 

What has been your plan to continue?  

We have closed the office, other than one person going in for at least part of each weekday, to deal with post and records being delivered and collected where they are not fully electronic. 

We are using Microsoft Teams for internal calls and messaging which has worked very well. For external video conferencing we are using Zoom and whilst it isn’t quite the same as a face to face meeting it does become more natural each time.

All of our internal systems have been on a remote server for a number of years so we just log in as we would in the office. 

We are meeting new challenges every day, for example, how we carry out the work that we would normally do at a client’s premises for example (particularly audit work). We have, for example, been carrying out stock takes over FaceTime!

We are not intending to change the current way of working until we can be confident that we can protect our colleagues, clients and their families. 

Inevitably networking (other than video based) is not viable and so our focus has been more on PR and social media to enable us to share our expertise with those who are not currently clients. 

How has business changed for you over the last few months? 

In truth it hasn’t changed as much as I was expecting (so far). Our work falls into two main types, compliance and planning or as I tend to describe it tongue in cheek, the boring and the interesting!

The compliance work fell off for a couple of weeks as people adjusted and we furloughed two out of our team of 14 but one has now returned. If anything the work is coming in earlier so perhaps people have decided that they may as well do their accounts if they can’t do what they should be doing!

The project work is where we may see an effect in the coming months depending on how long a post lock down recovery takes. 

It has certainly been more distress based than we are used to but we are doing everything we can to help ensure that our clients come out the other side of this most difficult time in the best shape possible and ready to thrive during the recovery and beyond it. 

As lockdown eases what measures have you put in place to get back to business? 

Business has continued, just a little differently. We are learning to meet the challenges and adapt to them. The office will not be re-opening to full capacity for some time as we can work as we are while we need to. Safety is paramount and everything else is secondary.

We have committed to the “if you can work from home do so” request/order but are also committed to supporting staff who may be struggling (for whatever reason) working from home. 

Having canvassed opinion lately the team are looking forward to returning to the office when it is safe to do so but accept that that time is not yet. We will take regular soundings, and in the meantime, we have carried out a risk assessment and are in the process of acquiring the required PPE to make the office a safe environment to return to when the time is right.

What has been the most challenging aspect of all of this? 

I think witnessing the trauma that we have seen clients and business friends subjected to by an enemy that can’t be seen and currently can’t be cured. A virus that is shattering lives and businesses. 

It is a fact that some of our clients and friends will see their businesses fail and some of them will lose family and friends to this terrible disease.

What has been the most positive aspect? 

The partners and management team are meeting more regularly than when we were office based. 

Inevitably there will always be differing opinions but the ability to deal with those and to work together in adversity has been a real highlight for me. I have learnt things about my own character that will benefit from “re-calibrating” and whilst that will always be a work in progress it has been a huge positive. We are undoubtedly stronger as a management team than we ever have been.

Also, the whole team gets together for a quiz, a drink and a catch up every Friday afternoon (virtually of course!). We share our highs and our lows. Oddly getting everyone in one place has never been easier!

What are your top tips for other business owners at this time? 

1) Spend any down time wisely. Consider what you would like your business to look like going forward and plan to make it happen.

2) Support your colleagues, your clients and customers, your suppliers as much as you are able. Without them what do you have?

3) Focus on your cashflow, now and when things start to recover. Businesses fail because they run out of money. Period.

Your parting thoughts? 

At some point, no matter how horrendous this journey is/will become, at some point it will be behind us and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.

There has inevitably been much talk such as “nothing will ever be the same” and “the new normal”. My view is that you don’t just rip up the past and “throw the baby out with the bath water”. 

We should take the positives and fuse the best of the old normal with the best of the new normal. What could be better than that? Here’s to a new and brighter future.

For more information visit www.hwca.com/accountants-swindon