Working from home was once seen as “A Perk”.

The ability to roll out of bed an hour or so later than normal and avoid the morning commute was the dream of many and afforded to The Few.

Working in your PJs with Holly and Phillip on in the background was something that “The Chosen Ones” enjoyed possibly once or twice a week; whilst their colleagues – suited and booted – would wish for with envy behind their desks.

The onset of the coronavirus pandemic forced companies to radically re-think and address their working environments, as they made every attempt to shield their employees from exposure to the virus. The situation was ever-evolving as the virus continued to spread and policies were being revised daily as Employers were monitoring the advice from Government and trying to make sense of facts vs fiction and adapt to their individual corporate requirements.

Lockdown forced the majority of employees to HAVE to work from home.

This was not an option.

It was law.

As the coronavirus spread around the world, JC Designs Directors and Management monitored the situation closely.

By end Feb 2020, we had a full Pandemic Business Continuity Plan in place and were well equipped to work from home at a moment’s notice by ensuring that our remote desktop capabilities were completely updated and functional.

Daily meetings were held to discuss the needs of the Company and our employees, but also – more importantly – the needs of all of our Clients that relied on us to ensure that their businesses kept going seamlessly. Any disruption in their IT services didn’t just impact us; it impacted hundreds of our Clients employees, their clients and suppliers.

JC Designs does both Software Development and IT Support, and it was the IT support side of the business that has proven to be invaluable during the first stages of the pandemic.

However prepared companies were; we were aware there would be a massive surge in demand on VPNs, client’s internal IT systems and external networks, as more and more people were forced to start working from home all at the same time.

When Boris Johnson announced “Lockdown”, JC Designs Pandemic Business Continuity Plan was immediately put into action. The decision was made that all Directors and Employees would work from home with 1 person in the office to manage the telephone systems as we predicted a dramatic influx of calls that would be hard to manage on SIP phones that we all had set up from home.

We were right.

On the first day of lockdown, we received over 90 support calls from our clients requiring urgent assistance to enable them to work. This was; on average; 11 calls per hour.

Many clients calling us had never worked from home before and never had to set up a VPN themselves and didn’t know their way around the “settings” on their home PCs or laptops. This was usually done remotely via one of our technicians – or via their inhouse IT support departments.

So many people had to be talked through the process, slowly and step-by-step by our Support Department who were just fabulous!

The cool, level-headedness of Ben, James, Ed and Charlie ensured that each call that we took was dealt with calmly and professionally and with a pinch of humour thrown in to alleviate the tension.

Their ability to be able to explain processes clearly and precisely in “lay-man terms” is testament to the professionalism; knowledge and expertise that each of these gentlemen has and we are proud to have each of them representing JC Designs and looking after our Clients IT Support requirements on a daily basis.

As the “new normal” progressed and the months passed; the demand for the urgent support calls reduced and the IT Support Team are now able to continue the work that they love that is trouble-shooting and recommending IT software and hardware solutions to improve and support our clients IT Infrastructure on an on-going basis.

The team continue to meet each day head-on with a typical JC Design “joie de vivre” that we appreciate.