Hello everyone, it has again been a while since our last post. Like many businesses, we have had a hectic past six months or so.
New Premises
We have moved to new office premises, whilst also keeping our old unit. The new offices have space for all of our team, along with much needed kitchen facilities and winter warmth. We are not entirely sure of the science, but our old unit is colder in winter than it is outside, so we are all very excited about not suffering cold feet this winter! Speaking of the old unit, that is now being turned in to a more useful storage facility and staff gym.
New Staff and Restructuring
Our team has grown significantly this year. We have decided to move Jordan Firth to a newly created role of Development Manager, to concentrate on building on our recent success and future proofing the business. Customer service will now be handled by our new Administrator Stephanie Burns, along with various other tasks. Steph joins us with a long history of working in the logistics industry and has settled in really well to life at CK.
Peter Hopkins has joined us in the resurrected role of Team Leader. Peter is responsible for staff training, development and vehicle management, as well as covering for staff holidays and helping out with customer service. The core of our operation, our driver team has also grown with the additions of Mark Hughes, Jack Marsh, David Driscoll and more to join us in the next few weeks.
This restructure and recruitment drive sees Michelle able to concentrate solely on the role of Finance Director and likewise Kelvin is now solely in charge of overseeing the business operation. They may even get a week off sometime in the future.
We have also started the process of moving some of our driver team on to a basic four day week. We are very strong in our belief of rewarding staff and providing a positive work/life balance for them. These are ideas that we have held for a long time, but our recent growth has allowed us to start to implement measures to realise our ideas and visions for CK.
New Vehicles and Other Stuff
Vehicles are very difficult to get hold of in the current climate, but we have just purchased a brand new Vauxhall Combo that we should be collecting Tuesday (26.10.21). We also added a panel van with a tail lift to our fleet back in July. As it is difficult to source new vehicles for purchase, hire companies have proved invaluable to us over the past few months. We have taken no fewer than four long-term lease vehicles on board since April and if anything, our fleet could still benefit from an addition or two!
As we discussed earlier, we intend to install a better staff gym in the old unit, in the space occupied by the old office. Again, with staff happiness and well being in mind.
As a business, we have been one of the lucky ones to eventually come out stronger, following the difficult past eighteen months. We are not resting on our laurels though, that is not the CK way. We are looking forward to an even brighter future and we are confident that we have put the right team in place to realise our goals. We aim to continue to help the local NHS trusts, by taking on board more NHS work and are taking steps in that direction. We are also exploring the possibility of offering a fulfilment service in the future, though this is very much in the early stages of planning.
We hope to be more active with our blogging and social media posts moving forward, so hopefully you will be hearing a lot more from us in the not too distant future. In the meantime, thanks for reading.
