Since the 23rd of March when lockdown started we have been working in the background to keep things moving. We decided that even though as electricians we are key workers and could continue to work we would put the majority of our staff on Furlough. This was a tough decision to make but I felt that if the works weren’t urgent it could be put on hold so we could too do our bit to help slow the spread of this awful virus.
A couple of weeks into the lockdown we soon realised that we were still getting a fair amount of emergency call outs, with this in mind I decided if the job was a genuine emergency it would only be fair to help out our customers in their time of need. Luckily we have always had hand sanitiser in our hand washing stations in the vans along with a stack of latex gloves etc so we could safely enter and leave properties following the government social distancing rules.
Since lockdown begun we have been having weekly team zoom meeting online to stay connected so I can keep them up to date and ensure they were all coping during isolation.
Over the last 2 weeks work has been slowly started coming in including work in progress and new quotations. Now we have a list of works to book in we will be bringing one employee back and taking them off furlough to cover all jobs until we have enough to bring back a second employee. As our guys will have to work solo jobs may take a little longer to complete without a helping hand from a fellow staff member.
Over the last month I have been working on our marketing and updating our van sign writing to give us a new look on our gradual return back no normality
Moving forward
We plan on bring all our current staff back over the next few months so we can resume giving our customers the great service we provided before the lockdown. We will start completing jobs that we had started before we closed, emergencies and new quotes.
Our plans for the year are still to take on another fully qualified electrician to grow the team, maybe not as soon as we had planned but it is still the aim. We will also have another member of office staff starting part time in September to help with the admin side of the business, freeing up some of my time so I can focus on things like helpful videos on our youtube channel.
With all this extra time with have had on our hands, we have been writing down all the things that make us stand out from the rest…so look out for our new “code of ethics” (The J Kirby Electrical Way)
Thank you for standing by us during this time.
