A day in lockdown with EQ – Laura Nicol

As we continue to work remotely, we remain focused on supporting our clients and maintaining contact with them and the rest of the EQ team.

To provide a glimpse into lockdown life, we asked various members of the team to share their experiences of what an average day working from home entails for them.

This week, we spoke to Laura Nicol, EQ Accounting Supervisor based in our Dundee office, to get an idea of how she is spending her time under the current circumstances.

What does an average day entail for you?

My body clock has finally changed now that I don’t need to allow for travel time (and queues of traffic of course) between Arbroath and Dundee, I’ve gone from waking up at 6am every morning to at least 7am (I’ve always been an early riser so that is an achievement for me!). My working day starts at the normal time and the majority of my days working from home have been spent processing payroll and dealing with the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS).

There has been plenty of webinars, articles and guidance on CJRS for us to keep up to date with, so making sure we pass this information onto our clients has become an important part of our average day.

What have you spent the majority of your time working on recently?

The main priority over these past few months has been calculating furlough pay or preparing and submitting CJRS claims. Regular guideline updates have meant reading up on new rules or different scenarios most days. It hasn’t been as easy as just salary x 80% in all cases so making sure we are calculating and claiming correctly has been a new challenge on top of our normal payroll procedures.

I think it is safe to say every day has definitely been a school day since lockdown began.

How have you been supporting clients throughout lockdown?

As the CJRS guidance given doesn’t outline every scenario, or answer every query, we have worked hard to ensure we can provide a solution to any issues or questions our clients have by contacting HMRC for further clarification or discussing the available options with our clients. It has been important for our clients to think about what is best for their business, but also do right by their employees.

We want our clients to come out of this in the best possible position, so it has been great knowing we have helped them along the way, even it is just a call or an email to reassure what they are doing is right or confirming their calculation is correct.

Given the current circumstances, are you doing anything differently? 

Working from home didn’t turn out to be as scary as I thought it would be – it was a bit of a mad panic leaving the office, thinking what do I need and what can I live without but now I am so used to using the computer for the majority of work rather than using files and files filled with paper. I now know it will be much easier to go between home and the office if needed. It is good knowing that we can cut down on majority of paper usage too – every bit counts!

I am lucky enough to work in a team who have become my good friends over the years so I do miss them. We message/call every day but it isn’t always the same as sitting across a desk from them – I’m very much looking forward to having a night out when we can!

At the end of the workday, what do you look forward to the most?

A cuddle from my little beagle Cala is what I always look forward to! She is super clever at the best of times but as you can see, she is also now learning to use a calculator….the perfect office assistant. As much as I will look forward to getting back to the office, I will miss being able to see her throughout the day and she will miss me too (I like to think so anyway – one less person to feed her treats!).

While working from home, we are still offering the same level of support and remain contactable. You can reach us on any of our usual telephone numbers and email addresses, which you can find on the Our People page on this website.