Autumn Newsletter 2020

The summer seems to have disappeared in the blink of an eye and autumn is upon us, as the nights turn darker and colder the Solo team are continuing to successfully ensure it is business as usual while we all adapt to the ‘new normal’. 

The majority of our head office team returned to the office in September albeit on a part time basis mixing working from home days with days in the office. We have all enjoyed the chance to work alongside each other again. In the meantime, company and client meetings continue to be held virtually to ensure we keep everyone safe. 

In early September we celebrated National Payroll Week. This week long celebration of all things Payroll was established in 1998 by the CIPP to celebrate the payroll profession and to give it the recognition it deserves, did you know that Payroll are Key Workers, keeping the UK Paid during COVID-19! We celebrated at Solo with some insights from our Payroll Manager, Ingrid Foster on the challenges the team faced and overcame when working from home to ensure everyone was paid! We also held a Payroll Quiz and found out a little more about our brilliant head office payroll team. 

As we are all aware, First Aid knowledge can save lives. Some of our Solo head office team have recently completed the Emergency First Aid at Work training course provided by St Johns Ambulance training. This invaluable course has given them all an understanding on what to do in an emergency, should the situation ever arise. 

We recently held a Macmillan Coffee and Cake Fundraising event at head office, there were lots of delicious cakes baked and bought for everyone to share! We managed to raise a brilliant £23. Thank you to everyone who got involved and helped to support this very worthy cause. 

In other fund raising news our residential running guru Helen Brown has set herself an inspirational challenge. Helen was due to run the Manchester Marathon in April which was sadly cancelled. She has decided that COVID won’t stop her fantastic fundraising efforts and has planned to run her own marathon on Sunday October 4th 2020. She will be joined along the way by other members of the Solo team, Sonia Stecko and Ingrid Foster, whilst others are going to be cheering her along! Helen is helping to raise valuable funds for the Nottingham University Hospitals Cancer Care Appeal – a very worthy local charity. I am sure you will join us to wish Helen the best of luck with this amazing challenge. 

We would like to congratulate Nic Barnard, Finance Manager who celebrates 8 years’ service with the company, Steph Willbye, Registered Manager who celebrates 7 years with the company, Anna Archer, Client Relations Advisor who celebrates 2 years’ service with the company and Petra Sunkova, Client Relations Manager, Natalee Prior, Client Relations Manager, Nicola Veselis, Office Administrator and Penny Yeung, Payroll Administrator who all celebrate one year’s service with the company. 

We would also like to welcome Claire Robinson to our team, she has recently joined us as a Client Relation Manager. 

Finally, on behalf of our clients, Directors and head office staff, we would like to say another thank you to our frontline Care and Support workers for their continued dedication and efforts in these difficult times. Thank you for reading – stay safe!