To think some have been given the nod?

[whatnow41]

DH works in an industry that has close links to both healthcare and hospitality. Since March he has noticed a pattern of certain very large customers (national chains of pubs or big brands) seeming to know and respond to lockdown and tier information a few days in advance.

In March I was working as a manager for an organisation that supplied call centre workers for the NHS Covid line. We definitely had some kind of a nod. We were told to get as many people as possible WFH in the 2 weeks before lockdown was announced. Literally getting brand new staff in, trained in a day, and out the door again to WFH.

I now work for a call centre again within a very key industry. Beginning of last week, despite our whole call centre being key workers, we began prep for WFH. The management have always said we can't support staff well enough to support customers on a WFH basis due to tenure. 95% staff have less than 3 months as it's a new site.

The positioning statement from our ceo last week was that we were just doing some business readiness planning "in case Boris announces increased levels of restrictions".

Now on the BBC news channel Boris is warning restrictions may be increased.

Some people get the nod, don't they?

Yes, they know.

I think the last furlough announcement was a clear indicator though that we were in for some tough months.

My organisation works daily with a key government department and if you think we have any indication when major policy is about to be implemented then think again.

Most decisions are made with less than 12 hrs notice, which severely affects how we run our public service.

My experience over the last 12 months is many key gov depts are running round like headless chickens!

@GreenlandTheMovie

I have some work colleagues who are posh, rich and from London. They definately knew in advance in March what was going to happen in some detail before the lockdown was announced.

In fairness, it was all over political Twitter. A lot of the journos are tipped off so they put things out there and the political types can see which way the wind is blowing. Look at all the Tier 5 rumours today, for example.

OnlyTeaForMe usually yes, but in this case it means the big players get an extra few days to work out their next steps (say, offering take away, or organising online alternatives) while the little independents in the same sector have to scramble at the last minute. So competitively unfair.

I’m an information analyst and my company helps advise companies of what is likely to happen in the future including upcoming restrictions related to COVID.

We heard about the tier change 2 days in advance from dp's ex, enough time for a hair cut, but she's public sector.

@minipie

OnlyTeaForMe usually yes, but in this case it means the big players get an extra few days to work out their next steps (say, offering take away, or organising online alternatives) while the little independents in the same sector have to scramble at the last minute. So competitively unfair.

That's the perspective I was coming from. So the large hospitality and pub chains cancelled all their orders and did not have unnecessary spend or food wastage, but the smaller independents have lost significant sums simply because of the timing.

I have my doubts given the timing of some announcements, even though I think some are done to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.

The House returns on January 7, so expect a change in tiers on January 6 which is Wednesday when these are normally announced, is my prediction.

I have some work colleagues who are posh, rich and from London. They definately knew in advance in March what was going to happen in some detail before the lockdown was announced.

Well most people realised what was going to happen because we were watching what was happening in other countries.

TFL never closed down in the last lockdown to the poster who mentioned that - it ran throughout, at a reduced service with some stations closed.

@Mustbe3ormorecharacters what are you expecting in the next few days, schools aside? I’m reading something is to come out that may be significant possibly this week

@GreenlandTheMovie

I have some work colleagues who are posh, rich and from London. They definately knew in advance in March what was going to happen in some detail before the lockdown was announced.

eh? Some people just love shouting their mouths off. They "pretend" to be informed - I had a boss like this, loud, posh and rich - he talked like he had a direct line to the PM - he didn't, was just guessing. Sometimes people guess correctly.

My friend works in non essential retail. She was astounded when they announced tier 4 happening and the shop she works in would be closing. Then again was really surprised when, before Christmas, her manager set a lot of the staff (her included) up to wfh doing call centre work. I think she thought she would be back at work on 31st December.

Anyone who kept an eye on the news in early March should have seen a lockdown was on the cards- Italy and France already were in one. It would have been quite negligent not to prepare for one here, even if it didn't end up happening.

More likely to be reading the wind and the necessity of forward planning in large organisations; I say this as a civil servant who has seen ‘engagement plans’ for govt announcements that even at CEO level for strategic sectors more often than not come post announcement (i.e. long after the trailing / leaking in the press). The NHS Covid hotline you were supplying may be an exception - The govt would have egg on its face if it locked down and put an unprepared Covid hotline out of commission.

@minipie agree - and the smaller companies also have the disadvantage of not having the infrastructure of larger ones. Even when a large organisation isn't specifically given a heads up before anything changes, they're more likely to have staff who can devote time to continuity planning.

I work somewhere that looks like a smallish place but is part of a much bigger 'umbrella' organisation and I can't tell you how much difference it's made to our ability to have staged plans ready for every aspect of the business, comms lined up, senior management briefed and generally give our staff the impression that we're at least relatively well prepared for whatever happens next. We've never been given 'the nod' before restrictions have been put in place or changed, but we've been ready for it every time (so far ).

I started working from home a few weeks before the first lockdown was announced. I had no "nod", I just have common sense and it was obvious what was coming!

There have been endless threads on here predicting what might happen for getting on for a year now, if you searched back you'd probably find instances of everything that's happened being predicted in advance

I'm sure all those posters aren't getting inside secret info, they are reading the situation and discussing options, even my work has planned for stuff and they certainly aren't being tipped off

It makes sense that the government would consult and canvass leaders of key industries. I have no idea if they do but it wouldn't be a secret conspiracy.

the last lockdown was forced by a leak 12 hours before, this government aren't sure what they are doing two minutes before let alone give some a nod

I just don’t understand how people can clearly not watch Boris’S interview

I stay abreast of the news, mostly by listening and reading. I have to be VERY desperate to voluntarily watch an interview with or presentation by Boris.
and generally haven't been overly surprised at successive waves of restriction announcements

The writing was on the wall last March as lockdowns spread east to west around the globe. I was advised we may get sent home before it actually happened - I helped notify suppliers we were closing the office. We closed before the national lockdown in order to protect employees and the business. It was a sensible move. Organisations have their own approach to risk.

Also, setting up WFH is part of our "readiness" plan for major events, eg terrorism, natural disaster, bad weather etc etc. Our medium sized office has had an emergency WFH plan going for several years. In the event of a major emergency in the surrounding area (including travel interruption for bad weather), we have mostly been able to do it for a couple of years to maintain a bare minimum level of service. We are not particularly essential in the grand scheme of things, so I would imagine critical companies have a much better plan in place.

Last year I watched international news closely, listened to scientists and advised that our company should move to wfh a week or two before govt advice. There was no 'nod', just business people thinking ahead and being prepared.

I think it’s just contingency planning. At the beginning of March our UK staff teams had all been split in 2 with half in the office and half WFH, and no mixing with the other group.

I was in the first team to WFH and I haven’t been back in the office since. Lots of other companies did the same - my friends and DH were all reporting the same. I was the first, but lots followed by the middle of the week with team segmentation.

I stay abreast of the news, mostly by listening and reading. I have to be VERY desperate to voluntarily watch an interview with or presentation by Boris

Yes. I can stomach him just about at the press briefings. I wouldn't watch him on the Andrew Marr Show. Anything important will be on the news headlines later.

You’d have to be a proper idiot to sit and watch this develop and think “gosh that’s a surprise, I never saw that coming

Most people I know didn't see the tier 4 restrictions coming in the middle of December. That was a surprise to everyone I know. Clearly we are all idiots. After London was put in tier 3 we expected to be in tier 3 before the end of the year but we didn't expect half the south east to go into tier 4 before the end of that same week.

I don't think (some) sectors do get the nod, otherwise you wouldn't have had pubs having to waste food and draught beer.