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Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented wide-ranging challenges for individuals and organisations across the globe.

During this difficult time, our priorities have been to protect our people, support our customers and suppliers, to safeguard our capital base and preserve the long-term value of the business.

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Operational response

Our operational response to Covid-19 was swift. By deploying our well-developed contingency plans, we were able to maintain service to customers, reflecting our highly agile and flexible infrastructure, technology and people.

Customer support

The skills and experience of our specialist customer-facing teams put us in a strong position to understand the impact of Covid-19 on customers and to support them with a range of payment relief options and recovery assistance.

Payment relief

Payment relief

Customers representing just under 21% of loan balances were given a payment deferral of some sort in 2020. Of those, almost all have recovered sufficiently and no longer need support.

Mortgages

Mortgage customers

Mortgage payment holidays and other forms of relief have been an essential lifeline for landlords, helping them to offer security and support to their tenants.

Commercial lending

Business customers

To help business customers get back on their feet, we gained accreditation to offer Government-backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans, Bounce Back Loans and Recovery Loans.

Employee wellbeing

Protecting the health and wellbeing of our people throughout the pandemic has been critical and continues to be a guiding factor. In addition, the success of home working during the pandemic has enabled us to move to a more flexible, hybrid model of working, where the majority of employees spend some time in the office and some time at home.

Home working

Home working

By 31 March 2020, over 90% of our people were working from home, supported by IT upgrades and expanded use of technology across the business. We didn’t put any employees on furlough, choosing instead to adopt a flexible approach to working patterns and to focus on policies which would raise morale and wellbeing.

Staying safe

Staying safe

Throughout lockdown, around 10% of our employees continued to travel to work to deliver essential services to our customers which could not be carried out from home. To keep them safe, we implemented strict social distancing, together with additional measures to boost hygiene.

Enhanced management

Enhanced management

To bolster employee support throughout the pandemic, we asked managers to keep in more regular contact with their teams, providing them with additional training and better technology to support video contact and collaborative working.

Wellbeing support

Wellbeing support

Regular wellbeing surveys enabled employees to tell us how they were coping and to highlight where extra support was needed. Our intranet site was boosted with a host of wellbeing news, including support for parents and signposting to useful resources and to our Wellbeing Team.

Community assistance

The virus, the lockdowns and the continuing restrictions put added pressure on the NHS and many of the essential services upon which our communities rely. We were keen to play our part, providing and supporting related charities.

Charity donation

£100,000 charity donation

In June 2020, Paragon made a £100,000 donation across four different organisations to help them reach more people with their essential services during the pandemic. These included the NHS, Solihull Change into Action, Age UK and Macmillan Cancer Support.

Move for Macmillan

Move for Macmillan

Over 65 employees from 13 different departments took part in our Move for Macmillan challenge, using their exercise time during lockdown to clock up over 10,000km and raise more than £18,000 in sponsorship.