Expanding Northern Ireland Financial Planning firm AKFP is repeating last year’s successful month-long office closure trial to encourage staff to work remotely.

Last year the firm closed its headquarters for four weeks to see if it could still operate as effectively by working remotely for the entire time.

The company says the exercise was “so successful that they are repeating it this summer.” The move last year attracted wide interest from the Financial Planning community.

AKFP, which moved to new premises at The Sidings in Lisburn at the end of last month, is shutting the new offices for four weeks while staff work from home during July.

The firm says that “as a business that embraces modern technology, working remotely poses no problems for the team.”

“They are able to access everything they need from the cloud so they can service their clients as usual.”

Calls to the office will be rerouted to mobiles and face-to-face appointments will be scheduled around the closure, the company said.

There will also be occasional visits to the office to collect the post.

Director and Chartered Financial Planner Roger Kennedy, said: “The initiative was really welcomed by the whole team last year and fully supported by our clients so it made sense to repeat it this summer.

“We know we have the systems in place to deal with any client queries in line with our usual high level of service.”

“Many of the team have young families so the added flexibility of this approach at this time of year is greatly valued.

“Last year, the firm reported that the exercise was shown to really boost morale and increase motivation to get daily tasks completed.        

“The philosophy behind our form of lifestyle Financial Planning is ‘one life, live it’ and this way of working shows we practise what we preach.”