advo news roundup

The week of the first lockdown advo launched it’s first staff weekly newspaper. There had previously been regular staff updates but nothing that was specifically designed to bring people together now we are all working apart. When advo launched a newspaper with the aim of keeping all remote staff connected and highlight that there was some good news in the world in amongst all the doom and gloom and it was not imagined that nearly a year later it would still be a useful and popular benefit to staff. With the onset of a new lockdown, the 32nd issue relaunched as the ‘ADVONIAN’ magazine, a permanent fixture within the advo group of companies The magazine has expanded its remit to keep everyone informed about the group as a whole and not just focus on the good news, but all the news and advo business updates.

Kate Boulding, Porchlight Corporate Partnerships Manager advo has again selected Porchlight, the Kent based homelessness support organisation as their charity of choice for the comming year.

Each year advo staff choose the company’s charity of choice for the year. There was a feeling that with the lockdown the money raised last year was below expectations and so we are keen to get back on track. Money raising and team building events have already been planned including a sponsred sleep out.

Goeorgina Cook from Porchlight commented “Happy New Year to everyone at advo. We are excited to work with you as your charity this year. Because of your support we can bring more people in from the cold into safe, warm accommodation. Your donations will do more than pay for a bed and a hot meal, they will be used to help rebuild people’s lives. Her colleague Kate Boulding added “We will continue to work hard into this new year, doing everything we can to ensure that people who are already struggling to get by are not pushed further into poverty. From all the staff and clients at Porchlight, we’re so grateful for your help.”

The bringing into the advo group the Sagegreen HR employees and HR Franchise businesses last year has allowed a considerable expansion of both local reach and HR expertise. advo were also fortunate to secure Alison Gill as the HR manager for both the advo hr and Sagegreen HR teams. Alison is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development and worked in senior positions within the HR profession for over 25 years bringing considerable experience. Sagegreen HR will move completely into advo branding shortly.

The lockdown support for existing and new clients has been extensive helping employers and their staff navigate the new rules and challenges with practical hands-on support with furloughing partnering with employee benefit and payroll teams. The current initiative, Crisis Support, delivers additional support or direct intervention helping SMEs in managing redundancy and business restructuring. advo received national recognition and praise in the 2020 Health & Protection Awards for the group’s response to supporting both it’s employees and clients during the COVID pandemic.

The establishment of new services within the HR companies includes the expansion of Recruitment support for clients including end-to-end process with much more reasonable fee structure than the wider recruitment market. advo has considerable experience with successful recruiting. The expanded end-to-end service includes online recruitment portals, covid compliant video screening and interviewing and psychometric testing.

Post lockdown advo will continue to practice what it preaches with the formal introduction of an alison gill element of flexible/balanced working with a continuation of task-based, rather than hours-based advo hr working, this will allow better support for those employees with outside work commitments such as childcare. manager

commented “Happy New Year to everyone at advo. We are excited to work with you as your charity this year. Because of your support we can bring more people in from the cold into safe, warm accommodation. Your donations will do more than pay for a bed and a hot meal, they will be used to help rebuild people’s lives. Her colleague Kate Boulding added “We will continue to work hard into this new year, doing everything we can to ensure that people who are already struggling to get by are not pushed further into poverty. From all the staff and clients at Porchlight, we’re so grateful for your help.”

advo has continued to recruit despite lockdown and has a number of new starters which has in turn allowed internal moves and promotions within the group. From January advo are joined by three new members of staff working within Corporate & SME Account Support teams. The January starters join other new staff in IT and the HR team. advo has the policy of recruiting from within wherever possible and so the new recruits have enabled promotions for Anabelle Hennon who moves across to become a Micro-Account Manager, Charlene Raman as an SME-Account Manager, Diana Rufai-Shittu to Corporate Account Support and Christina ‘Cricket’ Brookfield to a newly created position, working within the Operations department as a Compliance Administrator. Mal Tomlins has moved from Business Developement Manager to advo’s Operations Manger. On moving to her new role Anabelle commented that she is “really looking forward to finally going into my new role. It will be very different as I can see most of the training being virtual and not in person but very excited to be learning new things.” Cricket who has moved into compliance said “I cannot wait to get my teeth into my new role. I’m eager to start the training, I love learning things, I’m also looking forward to dusting off some skills I have not used for a while! Diane, who will be overseeing a new portfolio of clients said she was “looking forward to building new relationships with clients in my new role and continuing to grow and develop within advo.” Colin Boxall, advo’s Executive Director welcomed the new people and congratulated the people moving into their new roles, also commenting “the lockdown has had a knockon effect and we have had to be adaptable moving to fully virtual learning, which has been challenging given the complexity of some of the new roles. Congratulations to all.”