8.How do you handle your employees and clients in this time of a pandemic?

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We've had some changes already. I was adamant that our work must be in our office where we care for the social, cultural, behavioural elements of our employees working days. And then we came to the pandemic.

And also, I've heard many horror stories from clients that had come to me seeking in-house staff because, there are a lot of horror stories for what was happening, people having multiple jobs, not not being at their desk. You know, it's, yeah, anyway, I was worried.

And then the pandemic came, and we were instructed to send our staff home. And so we did, we set them up with our assets, we ensure they had good internet service, and they worked from home.

To my great surprise, I had no complaints from clients. And to my even greater surprise, after only a short period of time, my staff were asking to come back to the office. So that changed my whole opinion. of why they changed my whole opinion.

And so it gave me a great deal more comfort, that it was safe for our staff to work from home for our clients in our business. And so, currently, you know, they've come and gone twice, they've come and gone.

And we continue to have no concerns. In fact, you know, some clients commented on how it was better, because for their staff, they weren't, they weren't having to travel so much. So, you know, timeliness was less of an issue. You know, that can be a frustration for us, with our staff in the Philippines.

Islander time is known, and that's something we worked very hard on, in our mentoring of professionalism, and we have a bonus for that. So some clients was saying that it was preferable.

And so currently, when two staff because of personal reasons, had to find work from home and offered their resignation, our clients didn't want for them to resign. And so we've set them up at home.

One lady has been working at home for six months now. And it's been working great for both her and the client. We've maintained that. And then for another client, for other personal reasons, has worked from home, then sorry, employee, two employees, work from home. And that's been fine.

Another young lady was getting sick towards the maternity leave. And so she works from home. And that's worked well. And then another lady, because she lives far away and had to travel to the office two hours every morning and two hours every afternoon, which she never alerted us to, you know, the nature of the commitment that highlights the nature of her commitment.

But eventually, she asked, she requested if she could have an alternate arrangement where she worked at the office for three days a week, at home for two days a week. Because the cost of travel, not so much the time, the cost was, you know, disconcerting for her. So we've enabled that.

And again, no complaints, it's gone very well. So I've really changed my opinion. And we're very happy for even new recruits to work from home if they're at a location where they're not able to relocate to our city.

Which also that has happened for two staff, most recently they've relocated to Dumaguete. So you know, I've learned to be more flexible and open to that and my experience is that it can work.