Covid-19 and coming out the other side
Well its been a tough 2020 so far with the Covid-19 pandemic hitting the whole world for six.
Here at JSD we were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic along with many other businesses around the country. The tough decision was made by management to send all of our staff home and place them on Furlough back on Tuesday 24th March. Leaving ongoing projects part complete but tidy was a hard decision but at the time it was what we thought was best for our staff safety and also the safety of our clients, with some of our commercial clients we didn’t really have a choice as they also closed their doors with an uncertain future ahead. Throughout the whole ten weeks we were unsure as to when or whether we would start again as our pipeline of work had also closed down and furloughed their own staff. Sites were closing and small companies throughout the country were also closing and some unfortunately in the end would not return at all.
Watching the daily Government briefings throughout lockdown was a stressful time for all, management and staff included as the uncertainty of it all was there for all to see. Following the announcement of the easing of the lockdown our management team started trying to decide the best course of action for our staff, the business and the clients we had waiting for our return, some of which were in the vulnerable category. I am glad to say every one of those members of staff and clients have been amazingly understanding of the situation and have supported and understood every decision made. Communication between all parties was key to keeping up morale and confidence that we could come out of the other side of lockdown. All of this was very painful and also slightly stressful for some but looking back now we would never have thought that the whole world would change so much and the future would be so different for everyone and normal* life (whatever normal is now) would return.
Once the Government had announced they were looking at lifting the lockdown it was time to plan a safe and controlled return for our staff but that was not going to be easy and straight forward. It was all about timing and programming the work to enable continuation of business so that we could have a sustainable diary of work once our workforce had been brought back from furlough. However a lot was dependent on the return of our suppliers and in other cases our sub-contractors who were dealing with their own unique circumstances. So on Thursday 4th June we made the decision to do a gradual return for our staff starting with the maintenance team who had repair and planned maintenance work programmed in for one of our clients a well known local retailer to carry out. Then the following week we welcomed the return of the rest of our team as our suppliers albeit on a limited resource and service returned to the fore. Following announcements on our social media accounts and prospective emails and telephone calls the phone then started to ring once more and the tender emails began to flow back into the inbox. By the second week of our return we were run off our feet with enquiries and thankfully the work diary began to book up.
Hopefully the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic has passed and we are now in a position as a country to return to some kind of normality. It is being reported daily that there are quite a few good companies closing their doors and not reopening and we are seeing redundancies throughout our industry but hopefully as a company JSD will continue to grow and manage to sustain our team through the tough immediate future and beyond.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our clients, working partners and suppliers for your support to date and would like to wish everyone out there the best of luck in the near future in whatever business it is you have.
We have now over the last few weeks secured several commercial maintenance contracts and domestic work including a home extension to begin in August. If you would like to keep up to date with our work or the goings on you can follow us on our social media pages via the links –
https://www.facebook.com/jsdengineering/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/18934672/
https://www.instagram.com/jsd.group/