Your Total Guide To Business

My Strategy For Surviving Coronavirus

By Gareth Rees, senior associate with Clarke Holt’s commercial team. He joined the company six months ago however he’s been a qualified lawyer for 16 years. He lives in West Swindon with his wife and two children.

When did you realise the Coronavirus could be a problem for you and your business?

I suppose it was around January or February when I realised it was a bit more serious than some of the media reports were suggesting – it gradually filtered through how badly it was hitting other countries. There was a gradual realisation that it was coming here and we would face unprecedented challenges. With the firm we started making plans before it was officially declared a pandemic. Thankfully when the time came it was easy for us to put those plans into place.

What has been your plan to continue?

Pretty much we’re all working from home and we are all busy. We have a very good IT support provider for the business and we’ve all got laptops and are able to tap into the firm via VPN.

We tested the systems before we took the decisions to work from home and it's all going well though I do miss seeing some of my colleagues face to face - I think we all feel that.

We are keeping in contact with each other. Microsoft Teams has become my most invaluable tool. I think it's the same with the rest of the team. We have team talks at least twice a week to check how everybody is doing.

In terms of work, we're quite lucky, we have quite an entrepreneurial client base, many in tech sector. I certainly haven’t seen much of a drop off in my work. They are busy wanting to push ahead with their deals.

I do feel we've been Insulated a bit by type of clients we have got. We've also been busy giving advice on issues including furlough, force majeure, frustration of contracts etc.

What have you seen about business which has been positive?

I'm quite a positive person and I recognise that many people are not in the position I am in terms of having work to do and to continue to do.

I try to keep a positive attitude, there’s a daily deluge of horrific news however there’s been a lot of positive stuff out there. Lots of how to advice, advice on things like furloughing etc.

I think that people down things to get going again if it's safe to do so. Generally with my contacts we’ve all been positive and supportive of each other.

What advice would you give to other business owners?

Look after your staff, clients and suppliers as best you can. Really plan for what work is going to look like after this.

Old ways of working may not apply. Forward planning is something that’s critical to coming through this successfully and picking up speed as the weeks go by.

Your parting thought?

Try to remain positive…there’s a lot of awful news out there at the moment, remain positive about.

Focus on the genuine sense of community out there. Everywhere there are people looking out for each toher, offering to help each other, and it's really heart-warming to see that. Also now we must really recognise the true value of our key workers – they’ve long deserved that.

For more information about Gareth and his colleagues visit https://www.clarkholt.com

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