Director
With more than 30 years of experience as a broker and underwriter, always putting the needs of her clients first, Mandy Cooper is well positioned to ride out any storm. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early March, Cooper says the shift to remote work brought some initial challenges with her junior staff . “[One trainee] had only been with us seven or eight weeks when we decided to send him home to work,” she says. “It was hard to supervise and train him, and some days we were so busy ourselves, we would not always check in with him.” However, Cooper says that both she and her trainee were able to rise to the challenge and overcome it.
Another frequent issue presented by the health crisis was not being able to visit clients. “We now offer Zoom meetings as opposed to face-to-face meetings,” Cooper says. “Some clients still want to see us, and we still want to see them, but with social distancing practised. I still hesitate when I go to shake someone’s hand and fumble as to how to greet them. It becomes a good icebreaker, as we both then laugh and start talking with a smile.”
Another silver lining of the pandemic is that it has forced Cooper and her team to grow, adapt and learn new skills to support one another, leading to increased empathy and patience. “We don’t know if their partner has just lost their job or if they have someone one close to them very ill,” she says. “With everyone working remotely, it can be slow and frustrating when clients are putting demands on us, but we must work through this together.”
For the rest of this year, Cooper’s goal is to continue to put her clients at the top of her company’s priorities. “Not everyone will survive these tough economic times,” she says, “but I am determined to work my hardest to support clients where I can to get them through it.”
