Prioritising Others

When I posted my last COVID related blog on 4 May, cases were at their lowest since September 2020 and Mila staff were being invited back into the office as we sensed something like a return to normality.

Since then, it’s been fantastic to feel the buzz around the whole Mila building again and to hear the phones ringing around the place. The feedback I’ve had personally from the teams who are here, as well as from the short staff survey carried out by our marketing team, is that they’re enjoying being back and that customers are happy with the change.

However, cases in the UK have obviously been rising massively since then and we’ve had to maintain the strictest COVID secure protocols throughout to keep everyone safe– from twice weekly lateral flow tests to departmental bubbles – even when the government has gradually been loosening the restrictions.

We’re very much a team at Mila so, for us, our response to the pandemic has always been about prioritising the needs and concerns of the most vulnerable amongst us – whether that’s a staff member or one of their loved ones. That’s why we’re encouraging all of our staff to get fully vaccinated to protect not just themselves but others, and why we’re continuing to be led by customers on the question of meetings and site visits so that they can tell us what they are comfortable with.

Even though today maybe ‘Freedom Day’, we won’t be relaxing our guard at Mila HQ. Our COVID safety measures will remain in place, masks will still need to be worn when on-site, some of our teams who can work remotely, will do so, and our internal communications plan will continue to remind and reiterate our safety measures and expectations for our teams. The reality is that high case volumes and large numbers of staff self-isolating aren’t just bad for our health, they’re bad for business too.

Richard