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Member stories during COIVID-19

Office Assist

Office Assist started in 2021 and are based in Cork. They offer a virtual office service that takes the pain away from the mundane tasks that are attached to being a business owner such answering the telephone, bookkeeping, payroll and other office tasks. Maria O’Donoghue, Director describes their experience over the last year. “COVID hit the week after my daughter turned 18. We were lucky we got to have her party but nothing has been the same since. That week we were wondering how would this affect us and what impact it would have on the business and our clients – then LOCKDOWN. The reception door was locked and remained closed for nearly 12 months. As we are not a frontline business we didn’t know if we could remain trading, so Geraldine, another director in the business, got on the phone to the office of the Taoiseach and was told yes as we provide services that help other businesses remain buoyant. Phew, we could work, but we were badly hit as many of our clients are physiotherapists, chiropractors and restaurants, these ceased trading immediately so our volume of work decreased. As the COVID numbers grew, we decided that it might be a good idea to prepare ourselves to work from home. We invested in a soft phone system and bought laptops for all the office staff. Just as these were put in place, three of our staff had to self-isolate, two continued to work from home, answering phones for our telephone answering clients and doing the bookkeeping for the others. Since reopening our doors we have found that a lot of people liked being undisturbed by bookkeeping at the weekend and now have outsourced it, so our business has grown. All our pre-COVID clients have thankfully returned and we have added a few more. While my now 19-year-old daughter hasn’t had a proper night out since her 18th birthday, business is steady and growing. Outsourcing is the way of the future.” Visit www.officeassist.ie or call 087 3666939 or 06332466

Mosaic

Mosaic.ie is one of Ireland’s top development agencies and saw an upsurge in business after quickly adapting when the pandemic first hit in 2020. Their team of 42 employees, who were previously based solely in their office on Baggot Street, shifted to remote working without issue. “We already communicated through online channels with clients. Internally, we also already split into project teams and had daily stand-ups to identify any issues or learnings on projects, so it was just a matter of bringing these meetings over to video calling” comments Senan Cronin, COO of Mosaic. Mosaic worked with a range of companies availing of the Trading Online Voucher Scheme during the initial months. “We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to support a range of businesses who needed to transition to an online offering. We not only got to help them from a technical perspective, but also in coming up with ideas of where new business opportunities online might be found. It was great to see some companies that you might be worried about, thrive. For example, we helped a number of restaurants switch to offering home cooking kits and this went very well. We worked with several fintech businesses - the aim being to reduce the need for cash through mobile apps; along with some online learning platforms that were built on both web and mobile” notes Senan. Transitioning back to an office does look likely to happen for Mosaic, but it will be different than 2019. “We have a close-knit team and have had one or two meetups (when it was allowed) this year. All of the team are looking forward to coming back to the office for one or two days a week but we will definitely be doing at least half the week remotely. A number of our staff are located in Kildare and Wicklow and less commuting time is very appealing to them”. To find out more visit mosaic.ie or call 01 9108958