Ruth’s 2021 Review
An interesting couple of years, don’t you think? It has felt, at various times, dystopian and scary, weird and not so wonderful, funny in a bad way, funny in a good way, ridiculous, confusing, unchartered, unwelcome, and tedious. It’s hard for most of us to remember what ‘normal’ really looks like as we weave through ever changing rules, guidelines and hysteria. As we go into 2022 and we watch - with jaws on the floor - as previously democratic nations mandate compulsory vaccination (no jab, no job!), we can only hope that the UK won’t follow suit. Bad for livelihoods, bad for businesses, and bad for humanity.
Back in March 2020 Boris Johnson told everyone to stay at home. Most of our team at Ink filled their cars with PCs, monitors and Post-It notes and roared out of Market Harborough like frightened cowboys overcome by the Apache. Our Payroll team, neatly and quickly defined as ‘essential workers’ stayed put, kept calm, and carried on.
Even for businesses in good financial health, the start of the pandemic was disquieting. Nobody knew quite what to expect and for some the spectre of job losses and even winding up was a real and present danger. But then Rishi the Kid charged into town on a horse called Furlough and all was well with the world.
Ink’s pandemic was furlough-free. Our home-working colleagues adapted swiftly to the brave new world of working days interrupted by home-schooling (sometimes so sweet, sometimes so sour), conversations and meetings held via Teams, and (mea culpa) the impetuous purchase of lockdown puppies.
Last Christmas seems like a very long time ago. We ended 2020 with a whimper of a festive season, even though The Ink Group had good cause to celebrate. Despite all the dire warnings and predictions, we had our best ever trading results, and entered into 2021 on the look-out for talented new hires to expand our team. I’m pleased to report, we found them.
As we head towards 2022 the expansion continues. We are investing in senior level recruitment (both in Payroll and in Employee Benefits) and in best of breed technologies to enhance our service delivery. Our business is quite unique, and its shape is constantly, though gradually, being refined by what we learn from our clients and by the shifting landscape of the world in which we all live. Our whole purpose is to provide effective employment support for smart businesses – and we can only do this if we look, listen and learn. Feedback, as they say, is the breakfast of champions, and we’ll be seeking this more actively next year. We’ll ask more specific questions (not just ‘is everything OK?’) and we’ll not assume that just because you pay our bills you’re delighted with the work that we do for you. If you think there’s something else that we can do, or if you’d like us to do things differently, just let us know. We can’t guarantee that we can always say ‘yes’, but we love to wrestle with challenges and, whenever we can, to conquer them.
I’m sure we’re not the only ones who are counting down to knees up and feet up at Christmas – we’ve worked really hard, and we feel we deserve it. Omicron and Jenny Harries lurk, of course, hissing ‘bah humbug’ and wishing us all the least merriment imaginable. But things reset … they must reset. That’s the thing about humanity – wars and pandemics like to do their worst, but people pull together in the end. We can’t thrive in lockdown caves, under vaccine segregation, and hidden by masks. Here’s to a happy and healthy 2022 and a return to that thing called normal. We look forward to seeing you.