Never before has being part of a national and, indeed, international business been so important as we have been able to share knowledge, learnings and best practice from not only a UK perspective but globally too.

Assuring the wellbeing of our franchisees and their teams sits at the heart of what we do at National Office and thank goodness for our wellbeing framework which was put in place last year in recognition of the fact that they are in the front line; looking after not only their clients but their CAREGivers too.

In terms of the pandemic, our National Office Covid Taskforce was formed back in March to ensure we were able to share the latest information and advice relating to the pandemic with our franchise network. Even before then, from January, we were updating the network each week.

Franchisees have benefited from a tremendous amount of additional support including FAQs updated as and when Government advice changed. We worked closely with our banking partners to ensure franchisees had access to advice. We also delivered a series of webinars relating to Government business support (in particular CBILS and furloughing). Our owners also had support relating to dealing with media enquiries and a marketing campaign to assist with CAREGiver recruitment was put in place including a repeat of our brand ad TV campaign.

PPE has been a challenge for the whole sector and we have procured PPE for offices via National Office as well as supporting our franchise owners to access what they need at a local level.

So, we have shared lots of ‘information’, but we’ve mixed it up with motivational and inspirational messaging too from the 60-strong team at National Office which has included video messages of thanks from our CEO, Martin Jones.

We’ve also had celebrity support who have shared video messages for our teams which has been lovely.

As with many businesses, we have found new ways of working, new ways of caring and, despite the horrific nature of this virus, have seen moments that make your heart sing.

Our network has come together to find ways to continue to provide exceptional care for our clients, CAREGivers have gone above and beyond and our franchise teams have displayed resilience, creativity and innovation in their approach to ensure Home Instead clients are still receiving quality care.

A huge thank you to all our teams for everything they are doing. We will come out of this stronger. Stay safe.

Ruth Brown, Director of Business Development