My Back To Business Strategy

By Tamara Rundle, immigration director of Redstart Law, a company which supports clients with business and individual visas and immigration into the United Kingdom.

Summarise how Covid-19 has affected your business? 

We're still busy with clients' visa extensions however our entry clearance work has dried up completely because very few people can fly into the UK at the moment.

We have communications experts waiting in Budapest to come in and work on the Nightingale Hospitals; a young couple that were planning to have one of the first same sex marriages in Taiwan before moving here who are waiting for the registrar there to open; and a married couple who are coming in to teach from Singapore who also cannot get processed at the moment and are worrying about getting here for the new school year.

What has been your plan to continue?  

We work across the world including countries such as Barbados and Singapore so we are really affected by what is happening there too. 

We can't affect flights being grounded so we have taken it on the chin and filled free time with pro bono cases for vulnerable people.  

We have steady work for extensions and switches into other categories for clients that are already here so we can keep paying the office rent and replenishing the biscuit tin.

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

We were about to take on our first apprentice but we have delayed that due to lockdown on a national and international scale. Before this happened, we were embracing growth with a new consultant who brought lots of work and so we were planning to seek more administrative support.  

Now that we won't see as many overseas instructions for a while we've throttled back and haven't replaced admin staff that had left.  We are four advisers who can all type, file and scan so it's not a problem in the short term.

Old clients always return and recommend new people to us plus we don't have any problems working remotely so we'll be fine even if the UK gets a second wave.  We know that is a very lucky position compared with many others. 

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

Our apprentice is still going to do her trial so we'll get her in as soon as we safely can.  Our HQ is in the Glove Factory in Wiltshire and they have a good back to work plan, and we’re all lawyers so we'll do our own risk assessments etc.

We will start to see clients face to face and deal with hard copy documents again in the next month or so but most of our clients are quite IT savvy and happy to meet remotely so we have always worked in a Covid safe kind of way anyway. 

We've helped clients that sponsor workers with their business recovery and furloughing to make sure they stay compliant and afloat but most of our business clients are quite technical so they've had a busy time and haven't been struggling.  

Entertainment businesses and one of our travel clients have had a much harder time and we've helped them much more with planning their current workforce and planning going forward.  

Some are embracing the need for staff from overseas, particularly those that have lost EU staff, and know they need to get more remote working/online savvy going forward so are recruiting expert staff from outside the UK with that in mind.

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

The clients that we always see face to face rather than via virtual consultations, are our older, disabled and vulnerable clients.  

Interestingly with Covid they are just the people we couldn't visit and instead we were just calling them up to check they were all okay.  Most work for them has been able to stay on hold  but we have taught a lot of people to use virtual communication tools and apps like Adobe Sign and Cam Scanner.  We've all become online trainers!

What has been the most positive aspect? 

We've had clients from years ago check in that we're all okay so it’s always lovely to hear from them. We've been involved in supporting and advising people in a stressful time.  That’s our strength and it’s good to know that we’ve helped.

Has it made you consider how you feel about other businesses/suppliers/customers/clients for good or otherwise? 

No we like and trust the people that we use and we serve all clients. We can advise in the way that barristers do so that everyone has access to justice so we haven't changed the way we onboard or changed any of our key relationships.  

How important is the phrase 'buy local, supply local' to you? 

We are local and we have local clients but we also think and act globally.  That is the nature of our job.  We contribute to the local economy by allowing businesses to grow, for instance we have worked with two different animation studios in the South West to retain and recruit specialist animators and both have gone from strength to strength and are now big employers involved in huge contracts.  

On a personal level we shop at Christines, Woolley Grange for our veggies and the farm shops, we buy our birthday cards and pressies in By the Way and I am a charity shop fiend so we support Dorothy House regularly directly and through charity shop purchases.  

We also have an office in Bournemouth and do a lot of work with the entrepreneur and business development groups there to build business on the South Coast as well as seminars and training here.  Our last training session, before Covid, was in Bath for a large animation client and their EU workers. 

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

1. Don't throw the baby out with bathwater. 

2. Many things can be done remotely but only if your systems are up to it so, if you afford it,  get the right people to put that in place. 

3. In adversity comes opportunity – one of the designers at the Glove Factory used this time of little design work coming in to get her record to number one in the Soul Charts.  

Your parting thoughts? 

We wish you well and if we can help, get in touch.  You can book a chat on our website (details above). 

For more information visit www.redstartlaw.co.uk