advo news roundupadvo news

change at the top

Lucy Pearce has joined the advo board of directors as the group’s commercial director. Lucy takes over responsibility for advo’s three main areas of payroll, employee benefits and HR co-ordinating a joint approach to services and technology.

The move has been popular with advo staff and warmly welcomed by the health and protection industry.

Colin Boxall, previously commercial director has moved to an Executive director position which better suits his wide range of responsibilities as a working shareholder of the group.

You can read more about Lucy’s successful career with advo and how the appointment was reported by the protction press on page 9.

staff magazine

advo’s excellence awards

The finalists for one of the protection industry’s premier events, the COVER Excellence Awards, has been announced with advo recognised for its work on employee benefits and advising clients on healthcare.

The Cover Excellence awards aims to ‘celebrate the leading firms and intermediaries within the protection, life and health insurance space’.

The awards that recognise both providers and advisory firms, and are judged by a panel of chosen by a panel of top industry experts, will this year be a ‘virtual’ ceremony held on the evening of the 10th November 2020.

advo are finalists in two of the nine categories, the ‘Best Healthcare Intermediary’ and the UK’s Employee Benefits Intermediary for the Year for 2020.

Commenting on advo’s success advo’s Executive Director, Colin Boxall said “advo is up against stiff competition but looking back over the last year, and in particularly how we have continued to support clients during lockdown, we are looking good in both categories. Last year advo was fortunate to win the Employee Benefit’s Intermediary of the Year category so fingers & toes are crossed for this year.”

Colin added “In March this year, advo, along with the rest of the UK was in lockdown and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The shortlistings for the two awards is testament to how our staff have continued to deliver excellent service despite such challenging conditions. It is because of them that advo has not only survived lockdown, but thrived.”

Jamie Tuffield picks up the UK’s Best Employee Benefit’s Intermediary on behalf of advo at the 2019 awards.

staff magazine

lockdown, communication and the fostering of a ‘comradery community’ is more important than ever. Here at advo we do our best with regular communications and updates. One of our more popular events is the publishing of our staff newspaper. Packed with latest staff news and advo updates it is a fun way to keep staff connected as they work apart. The advo weekly staff magazine, the ADVOGOODNEWS news which started the first week of lockdown has just published issue 29, a Halloween Special edition.

lots of new faces

alison gill advo hr manager

With the new lockdown advo has again As we start a new

moved staff to homeworking but still continued to recruit across all parts of the business from account management, administration, IT & technology and HR to support our continued growth. Our latest management appointments are Alison Gill, appointed as advo’s new HR Manager, overseeing both advo hr and Sagegreen HR and Marilyn (Mal) Tomlin who moves from a Marketing Manager role to a newly created Offices Co-Ordinator position. Alison is chartered CIPD Level 7 with over 25 years’ experience as Head of HR at EAT and Monsoon Accessorize, as well as working in consultancy-based HR roles. “Alison brings not only a wealth of experience but a good dose of passion that matches our existing culture.” Commented Lucy Pearce, commercial director adding that “Mal is just simply brilliant, and has such a wide range of business skills and experience.”

advo’s excellence awards

The finalists for one of the protection industry’s premier events, the COVER Excellence Awards, has been announced with advo recognised for its work on employee

The Cover Excellence awards aims to ‘celebrate the leading firms and intermediaries

Colin added “In March this year, advo, along with the rest of the UK was in lockdown and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The shortlistings for the two awards such challenging conditions. It is because of them that advo has not only survived

offices covid ready

As England is again in lockdown the majority of advo staff have returned to homeworking. The offices had previously reopened, mainly for the training new staff, but are again now closed except for our essential workers. Prior to the recent lockdown the offices had been reorganised to closely adhere to the government’s COVID-safe office guidelines in addition to signage and sanitiser stations, with reorganised seating, newly installed plexiglass partitions, is testament to how our staff have continued to deliver excellent service despite

non-touch swipe-card entry and team ‘working bubbles’. All now ready for hopefully an early December return.

“advo staff continue to be resilient and take the constant changes in their stride” says executive director, Colin Boxall, adding “We understand that our people are our greatest asset and try to look after them as best we can, they have excelled in adjusting to the new way of working ensuring our clients receive the same level of support.”