Our response to COVID-19

As we enter the sixth week of the UK’s lockdown it is clear that the Coronavirus pandemic has created a set of unprecedented challenges. For the country as a whole, for the economy, for us all as business people.

As business leaders, we know that maintaining a clear focus on doing what is right for our own businesses comes with the territory. Each of us dedicated to taking the necessary decisions at the appropriate time. While recognising that each business is different there are still key learnings that can be shared, and I thought it might be useful to share the details of our approach, here at Brabners. 

A £35m law firm, made up of over 70 partners and 400 employees. Three separate offices based across the North West but supporting clients – both large and small – nationwide.

In early March, as the pandemic emerged in the UK, our response ramped up, focused around three mains areas:

• Protecting the health and wellbeing of our people, our foremost concern, by following the Government’s advice immediately and at all times;
• Continuing to support our clients as they attempt to navigate their way through the crisis; and
• Maintaining business continuity, by initiating a ‘crisis response’ approach.

Common to each is our desire to be open, honest and transparent with our clients and our people, sharing with them “what we can see” and “the way that we see it” as often as possible. Whether that is keeping them up to date with the latest guidance or outlining what the current situation may mean for us as a business.

Alongside this desire to be open, honest and transparent, is a determination to remain true to our core values, of being ambitious, showing we care, doing what’s right and standing together. Placing the needs of our clients, our people and our firm at the heart of everything we do.

This approach has provided the framework for all our decision making and, by adopting it, we believe we will continue to protect and serve the long-term interests of all our stakeholders.

Protecting the health and wellbeing of our people

The first week of lockdown saw us dedicate most of our time to making sure all of our people were safe.  

As well as providing regular updates on safeguarding plans; well-being support, in particular to those colleagues who were possibly affected by Coronavirus either directly or indirectly; and any changes to Government guidance, our predominant focus was to provide our people with the ability to work remotely. Which also meant they could be safely ‘locked down’.

Providing our people with the ability to work flexibly has been a long-term ambition for our firm. We have long recognised that the future will bring a need for us all to work differently, adapting to the changing needs of our clients and our people.

Fortunately, this meant we had plans in train, that could be accelerated, and we were able to action remote working quickly and efficiently.

Within a week of the lockdown announcement, and save for a small office-based skeleton staff of business support and administration colleagues, we had mobilised the whole firm and were able to work remotely with no disruption in the delivery of our service to clients (we hope).

Continuing to support our clients

We take our responsibility to clients seriously. Recognising that, along with our people, they are the heart of our firm and that their problems are our problems. Particularly in times like this, when it matters most.

We immediately established our COVID-19 Client Support Group. Designed to ensure a continual two-way communication channel with our clients, to be their voice in our business and to connect our people across service lines, the team has been dedicated to understanding the live issues our clients are facing and crucially shaping our response to them.  We have established a dedicated client helpline and created a COVID-19 hub on our website, providing clients with supportive content and advice.

But we also encouraged all our colleagues – irrespective of their roles or relative experience – to check-in with client contacts, if only to let them know we are thinking of them and are standing alongside them (even if it is remotely at this time).

Maintaining business continuity

By week two of lockdown, we had shifted our focus to the long-term sustainability of the firm.

Comprising of the senior leadership team, the Coronavirus Response Group is charged with managing any and all business-related challenges. It is clear in times like these that ‘cash is king’ – when isn’t it? And, again fortunately, our shift in focus coincided with the very timely announcement of the Government’s measures of support.

We immediately set about understanding what options would be open to us: deferring tax and national insurance payments, furloughed leave and Government-backed business interruption loans, for example. We spent time making sure we understood what the options were and how they might support us in the short, medium and long-term.

We also turned our attention to our cost base. In an environment of real and continuing uncertainty, we modelled several different revenue, cost and cash flow scenarios.  All mapping out the likely impact of COVID-19, the anticipated reduction in work levels across our different teams, the action clients would need to take to protect their own business, the need for our people to adjust to the ‘new normal’ and how this would impact on our operations.

We knew we needed to face into some tough decisions. Decisions that might erode our external reputation but more importantly impact the trust of our people which is so vital to the culture of our firm, making us who we are.

But, in the end, it was that trust that shone through, in bucket loads. Supported by the spirit of openness, honesty and transparency and by the determination to remain true to our values – in particular, standing together when it matters most – our people backed us, with 100% agreement to the measures proposed.

Whether that be the more difficult measures on across the board temporary salary sacrifices, our proposal to furlough a proportion of roles across the business, our plan to suspend pay reviews and bonus payments; or the relatively easier measures to curtail other costs for the rest of this year, marketing activities and entertainment costs, travel expenses, external training and some recruitment costs.

So, this has been our approach and an outline of the measures we have taken. I suspect like many, if not all, businesses we have had to make difficult decisions quickly, which we know will have an impact on our people.

But, guided by our desire to be open, honest and transparent and by our core values of being ambitious, showing we care, doing what’s right and standing together, we decided that this was a time to lead from the front, be decisive and face into a situation none of us have ever faced before, at all times doing what we believe is in the best long-term interests of our clients, our people and our firm.

Our firm has been in business, supporting our clients for more than 200 years. It has survived two World Wars, the Great Depression and numerous other financial and economic crises.  It is going to survive the impact of Coronavirus and be even stronger and more resilient in the future because of it, as will the business and client communities that we are so proud to serve.

It still unfortunately feels like it is early days and the Coronavirus will be the crisis we are dealing with for weeks and months to come. Six weeks in, we are now refocusing our efforts once more on creating and delivering products and services to our clients that are designed to meet their specific needs, a partner in action, supporting our clients, our people and our communities when it matters most.