IN THE SPOTLIGHT: HOW AGENTS ARE DEALING WITH
LYNDA ROSS Stewart Travel, Kilmarnock The branch manager has been working round-the-clock with her team to bring home four customers stranded overseas, while creating a study-at-home routine for her 11-year-old daughter.
As you can imagine it has been tough, but Ellie’s school has been
good and provided a lot of work for her to do on a website called Glow. I am just trying to keep her to a routine, making sure she is getting up, dressed and doing her literacy and maths. It is very difficult to manage because I am as busy as I have ever been – it is hectic. My husband, Derek, is in the kitchen and I am in the dining room. Ellie is in her bedroom. She did start in the dining room at the end of the table but
that lasted about an hour. Now I just go up to her room and check on her. I can see the progress that she is making online. My husband is loud, so I keep going into the kitchen and giving him my angry face. I do my usual team talk at 9am and then all 13 store managers have a conference call at 10. It is just constant throughout the day. The staff are emailing rather than shouting across the shop as the information is changing all the time. I worked in travel after 9/11 and I thought that was bad. It is not about booking holidays; it is about rebooking them. My store has four people overseas – one in Australia, one in the US and two boys in their 20s in Thailand. We are working around the clock to get them home. We are fortunate that we still have our jobs and we’re safe, but I do miss talking to people. I miss the company too.
LINDA ARMIT Barrhead Travel, Glasgow Since closing its stores last Tuesday, Barrhead employees are now based at
home. Head of sales Linda
explains how they’re keeping in touch. Our branch managers are used to being
surrounded by people. They’re used to seeing
customers and teams face-to-face, so adapting to email communication has probably been the toughest challenge. We’ve got [video conference service] Zoom and we’re loving it. We’re doing business updates, which is critical for them to know what’s happening in the business, and introducing fun activities as well. One of the challenges of working from home is forgetting to take a break, so we’re trying to do Zoom coffee chats and lunch breaks so it’s not business all the time and we can catch up and see how everyone is. We’re also launching a telephone service so agents can make calls to customers from home. We’re working with key operators to try to get access to them quicker. For some managers, it’s about getting used to a laptop; some of them have never used a laptop before.
KELLY BROOKS Premier Travel, Suffolk Travel consultant Kelly has been furloughed under
the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
It’s surreal; I keep thinking I’m going to wake up soon. We had a closed-door policy until the lockdown. People could look through the window and wave at us. We have a lovely team of five with nearly
140 years of travel experience between us. Our manager, Amanda, is now working from home but the rest of us have been furloughed for eight to 10 weeks to avoid redundancy. Amanda has been a rock throughout all of this. The company doesn’t want to lose us and wants us back when it’s back to normal. We’ve all been so well looked after. I’m going to miss it; I normally skip to work! I am part-time and will be 60 this year. I just want the business to come through this. We have all been keeping in touch, making sure each other is OK. I’m trying to go for a walk every day and I will do some gardening. I am keeping positive; that’s all you can do.
12
2 APRIL 2020
travelweekly.co.uk
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