Well several weeks have passed since I last expressed my thoughts. We have been fascinated to watch the election results in the US and marvel at the number of people who honestly believe the lies that Trump has propagated and forgive him for the deaths that he has caused. At home, our own clown continues to perform his high wire logical acrobatics and we are nearly through the second lockdown. The country is excited to imagine that Christmas will be normal-ish although some are afraid that Granny will die because of it. Then there is the encouraging news of vaccinations by Easter although the distance ‘tween cup and lip seems to be huge.

Meanwhile, back at the factory we have plodded on with the two shifts and managed to keep slightly ahead of budget. The deluge of enquiries for hand sanitiser has diminished and we are keeping on top of the PPE situation. We have had only one case of COVID 19 and the “Test and Trace” failed to require anyone else to self-isolate. Sadly, the one who caught it is still suffering and for a while we couldn’t see a route for a safe return to work.

Of course, we have been lucky in so many ways that the inconveniences and stress of maintaining and reassuring people about the safety of the working environment weigh small in the balance. One thing that the two-shift system has shown, however, is the importance and difficulty of maintaining adequate communications between shifts when they can’t physically meet. The handover notes are never sufficient and the speed of degradation of team working to “them and us” arguments has been striking. For me, the silver lining is that these issues have been exposed and we are in the process of remedying them with management training and extra focus on communication and the accountability of individuals for the outcomes.

In one example I’m particularly impressed with the performance of our process development guy in the lab who has carried the burden of a new product introduction for a key customer and kept a difficult project up to speed despite the communication difficulties. In another example, I was impressed to sit in on a Teams meeting to discuss the introduction of a 140 tonne run of powder blending and packing that is planned to start in the next couple of weeks.

Personally, I have managed to take two days out at a retreat in North Yorkshire, which at this time of year is populated with sheep, and gave me a chance to think about the business and my role within it. Now, I just need to be disciplined about keeping these things in focus and avoid being distracted by day to day details.  

Now we also need to focus on Brexit!