 Hi, my name is Joanne Mitten and I'm the HR Manager and Quality Assurance Manager with ATC Language Schools. So there's been, as you know, a lot of HR issues throughout the whole pandemic, but also my role would involve the operations within the school and getting people back into classes safely. So, can I ask you again about the challenges that the pandemic has posed for your school and for you and your role? Yeah, so the challenges at the beginning was the jump to online lessons in full. And people were a little bit concerned about it and students were worried about going into online lessons. They didn't know what to expect. But then as people settled in, they became really happy with what was happening online but also keen to get back into the school. So the next challenge that kind of came out of that was getting the school ready for socially distanced learning and having masks and visors in classes and just making sure that people could come back safely. And there was a huge amount to that. You know, once you start looking into that, there's avenues, you know, you're taking down all sorts of different areas and you have to make sure that everything is covered and everyone is safe before they come back in. So I would say from a logistics point of view, those would be quite big challenges. But then on personal aspects, you know, students did struggle a little bit being at home and feeling isolated. So they're at home in their home in Ireland, but they're isolated from their families back home and they don't get to see their classmates face to face. And so that was something that we really had to help them overcome. And there was some anxiety there. One of the important issues, important aspects of the HR role is the welfare of staff and by extension of students. How has that been, how have you, how has the response kind of evolved from that point of view? I think our starting point when everything kind of came to the fore in March and April was much more communication with staff, lots of Zoom calls as, you know, with the teaching staff altogether, then with the whole staff admin and academic, and then lots of catch up with either myself or school directors face to face one on one with staff over Zoom. And I think that's one of the big things that's developed out of this is that communication has been constant and has been very helpful. And I think that was the starting point to making sure that we're hearing staff concerns and particularly we're coming back into the school. We sent out a lot of surveys and emails to students and teaching and admin staff, also host families and taking all that on board has helped a lot with everyone's peace of mind because I hope I'm right in saying this but I get the impression that they feel that decisions aren't just being made for them, they're being involved in the decisions which I think is a huge thing for keeping people feeling safe and listen to. You mentioned the feedback there, what would you say are the things that you learned from the feedback that informed what you went on to do in terms of what students or staff were concerned about or needed support with or how they felt in general. Well, I learned that overall, you know, staff and students are all really, really responsible. And that was their main concern was that if they were to come into the school, were they doing the right thing were they sticking by government guidelines. How can they make sure that they're not putting themselves or anyone else in danger. And, but they also came to us with lots of really good suggestions. So, obviously we were following guidelines and following, you know, government procedures. But lots of really helpful suggestions came from staff and students as well because they were so focused on coming back safely and doing the right thing so that was a massive help. And I think I might have headed around your question there was there another part of that question that I should have answered. No, no, it was just in terms of what what they, yeah, what what what what what what how how their, their feedback informed the way things took shape in the end, both academically, and in terms of safety wise and welfare, the welfare aspects of it as well. Well, and academically, I think it really helped us to get back on track because they were very keen to get back into the classrooms but they were very vocal about the fact that they obviously needed classrooms to be distanced in the right way and We had planned that we had planned for small classes with two meter distance and masks and in the class and all all around the school but we're worried about the reaction from students and teachers to that. But the feedback they gave us was that that was exactly what they wanted. And they didn't want to see us. You know, putting too many people and by too many it would be you know, eight rather than six people in a class, and they didn't want us to be too lenient they wanted to see us have pretty stringent measures in place, and to make sure that they were once we were open that people had their eyes out and we're helping people keep those measures in place. So the feedback since we've been back is that the students and teachers have told us that they feel very safe with us. And they're, they're happy to see us rigidly stick by the rules. And whereas before, you know in normal times, you know, people kind of want a little bit of leeway or they want to be able to talk their way around things but here everybody really wanted the rules to be kept. So that was very great for us. It made our jobs a lot easier. It also made the school feel very safe when we were in there. So you've gone from online delivery to return to the classroom but with social distancing and precautions and all of that. How do you see the situation developing in the in the medium to long term. I think this is one of the most difficult questions. It's very, very hard to say in the short and medium term how things will develop but I think realistically, our school and I think most schools will need to have a combination of online and face to face classes when we open up again and this time round, you know, we have, we've done it already so we're very, very confident we're bringing people back in a smooth way into the school. I also think it's essential that schools have parallel running and online classes because you need to be able to seamlessly let's say a student or a teacher needs to self isolate or a whole class needs to self isolate. They need to seamlessly transition into online classes so that we don't have that stop start feeling that we had back in March and and I think schools are well capable of doing that and having that set up. So I think that's our short to medium term future is having this sort of parallel running of face to face and online and making sure that things are standardized across those two systems. And from what we've seen in the short time where we've had it set up in ATC it's really well received. So any students that come into the country and have to self isolate or even we have students who are abroad who are taking classes from their own countries. And they find that the quality of the online classes are just the same as the face to face classes. And that's where you'll find success, you know, if people are really happy with online, as much as they are with face to face, then you can, you can kind of merge the two pretty well. Do you think that when when students are choosing a school or indeed somebody is choosing where to school to work with or study in. Are there new factors now on their mind when they're making that decision that wouldn't have been there before. Absolutely. Yeah, I think one of the, the first things that students would look for is really clear information on what to expect when they come to the school. So it's no longer just kind of booking a school and showing up. I think students expect a very clear, maybe video induction. Well in advance that that's available even before they book the classes. And I think they expect at the very least FAQs on how to expect when they're in there. And I think that what they're looking for is really high level of health and safety and quality teaching, whether it's online or face to face. And then if you would kind of summarize, or trying to kind of wrap up by thinking about, apart from how to operate zoom, which we've all learned kind of, and those kind of technical things. What would you say that you have learned as an organization and and yourself as a professional that as a result of kind of going through this, this challenging experience. I think we've learned that the resilience and adaptability of staff and students is kind of incredible. And there are lots of things that you have in mind when you're running day to day, and everything's normal. You've all these sort of plans and things that you're going to develop and it all, you know, it all seems to take a long time but when you're pushed out of your comfort zone. The things that a school can achieve and the people within that school can achieve is actually amazing and they can do it in a very short space of time and do it really, really well. So I think everybody has kind of had that realization that change is difficult, you know, it's you have to be quite resilient to go through change quite quickly. But it is absolutely possible and you can come out the other side with great things new products new ways of approaching things and whole new structures. And it's, it's not this insurmountable thing that we used to think if you're pushed out of your comfort zone you can kind of achieve most things. One of the things that strikes me as we went from a two week closed down to getting extended to six and 12 and maybe longer, 18 months is is the challenge of sustaining motivation, both from the students and from the, from the staff point of view. How have you found kind of dealing with that aspect of it. I think we've been very lucky because we have a really great team around us in ATC and because I actually feel that because every week almost throws up a new challenge that that kind of keeps things. What's the word it keeps things kind of fresh and people are adapting to new challenges all the time. So, yeah, working from home is quite difficult and motivation can be tricky so I think communication and lots of checking in with people and making sure they're okay is there anything that they need is there anything we put in place to help them do do their jobs that's really important. And but actually what I found is that there's so much going on and so much that people are adapting to that it doesn't go stale at any point there's always a new kind of problem or challenge that we have to overcome almost every week. Definitely interesting, interesting times with the good and the bad of that. Yeah, is there anything else that you want to mention about how you've been doing things and how you hope to bring it forward. Well, I mean, I, I really have to say that we've been so lucky in ATC with the team that have been around us. So, I think, once you have kind of positive people throughout your organization. You know, problem solving, rather than kind of dumping problems is a massive thing going forward and I think that's the way schools and all types of organizations are going to survive into 2021 and 2022. And that sort of positive outlook problem solving and and keeping motivated is is the key to it and we've been really, really lucky in ATC with with the team because they've come up with some amazing ideas and push them through much quicker than you know, in normal times, you things that you think would take a year or two years has happened in three to six months. It's amazing. We're now into a period of kind of continuous change and ongoing development. Yeah, there's no standing still I think from what you're saying there. No, I mean, you just you just can't you just you never know what's going to crop up next but I think it's how you react to those challenges is is what makes or breaks an organization.