Navigating the 2020 Pandemic as HR Manager

Purchasing macaroons online for employees

Recently we had some HR managers from a corporate company purchase macaroons online from us to say thank you to their employees for all of their hard work throughout these past few challenging months. These corporate gifts included a note to their employees too which was personalised to ensure that their employees felt appreciated. This is what really got us thinking about HR managers’ role in all of this. We discuss in this post how they have made sure that their employees’ morale is boosted, how they have made their employees feel appreciated and how sending macarons by post could do this job for you!

Changes experienced at Miss Macaroon and how we navigated them

We spoke to some of our employees at Miss Macaroon about the 2020 changes to get their opinion. The Miss Macaroon team is made up of 10 employees, we are a social enterprise company and we reinvest 100% of our profits back into providing training and jobs for long term unemployed people in Birmingham. As we are a social enterprise company, we have found that we have been hit badly by the global pandemic. We cater to corporate clients predominantly who have not been able to purchase macaroons online as they normally would for events, they have just not needed to order macarons because all events have been cancelled with very little prospect of them beginning once again. This has been hard for us to navigate and we currently have eight of our ten employees on furlough. We spoke to Jenny, our pastry Chef who is on furlough and Alice, our marketing Executive who is currently not on furlough and has been predominantly working from home.

Pastry chef Jenny speaking on furlough life

‘I have found it quite hard, as the sole pastry chef I am normally kept extremely busy in the kitchens, other than making the macaroons I am responsible for sending out the macaroons to those who have purchased macaroons online. At the beginning, people did not want to order macarons incase of the spread of COVID-19 and my workload declined until it was decided I would be on furlough.’

Jenny said that at the beginning ‘I was finding it hard to keep busy, with no one needing/wanting to order macarons, I found it quite hard to be sat at home. Fortunately my manager Rosie was great and came up with some training which I could carry out on furlough which has helped to structure my day and boost my morale’.

We also asked Jenny if she still felt appreciated as a team member and employee, she replied ‘yes completely, Rosie is very good at checking in and updating us on the situation. I heard that some HR managers wanted to purchase macaroons online to send out to their employees and I thought that this would be a great way to also help employees feel appreciated. I think in a bigger company it is harder to check in with everyone so this little gift would definitely do the trick!’

Marketing Executive Alice on working from home

Speaking to Alice, our marketing executive who has predominantly been working from home, she says ‘I am an active person and so I feel lucky to have not been put on furlough, it’s been weird not having my colleagues around me all the time and sometimes I find that I am getting demotivated at home and cooped up. Fortunately, due to Jenny being on furlough, I have now taken the responsibility of preparing the macaroons for those who have purchased macaroons online which means I get out of the house for part of my day.’

Alice says ‘It’s great to see people needing to order macarons again especially to send as gifts to their team. I think whether you are working from home or on furlough, you are bound to have low points and I think, especially in larger companies it is easy for employees to go under the radar. When the HR manager got in touch with us wanting to purchase macaroons online for her team, I thought it was such a lovely idea, especially as we are able to personalise it. I thought that if i had received that in the post it would have made my day!’

How being able to purchase macaroons online has boosted team morale

Our recent client came to us wanting to order macarons for all of the employees in the company, they were an HR Manager and looking for new ways to ensure that their employees felt appreciated and were given a little morale boost. They said this was the ‘perfect way to do it because they were able to purchase macaroons online easily and they would have next day delivery too’ plus, they said that the ‘macaroons are brightly coloured and you could add a personalised note to all your employees’. It has become extremely exciting to receive gifts in the post because people aren’t experiencing that physical contact or connection that you would normally get on a day to day basis, especially in an office. Therefore this seems an easy and obvious way to ensure that your team is being thought of and feel as if they are being appreciated.

You can order macarons online at Miss Macaroon and they will be with the recipient the next day. We can also provide these macaroons in your company colour or even print your logo onto them when you purchase macaroons online at Miss Macaroon. This will help to provide your employee with a really thoughtful and bespoke gift to boost their morale even more!