Hi everyone! We are in some unprecedented times for sure. Right now, I thought I’d share with you some things that we’re doing to help our associates stay connected remotely.
Last summer, we decided to allow our associates to start working from home on Fridays as a trial run prior to adding this as a long-term benefit to our associates. It worked so well, that our team continued to work remotely every Friday through the end of 2019. Little did we know that we were actually preparing for a time similar to what we are experiencing today. When we decided to switch to working remotely full-time until it is safe to go back to the office, we found the transition to be seamless since we had already created some best practices.
With this in mind, I want to share two best practices that we have in place right now that helps us stay connected in this “new normal.” We have to create some transparency and maintain intentional communication. There are two practices that we’re implementing in order to accomplish these two things.
First, the leaders and I meet at 8:00 AM each day via Microsoft Teams so we can see each other, connect, look at our priorities, make sure we’re on course, and of course, discuss anything that we need to get on the table that happened from the day before. Things are happening so fast that we need to connect more often.
The second thing we’re doing is what we call the “12 at 12” in an effort to be incredibly transparent with our associates and to keep our team in a positive frame of mind. Every day at 12:00 PM, our entire team meets via Microsoft Teams for 12 minutes, so I can update everyone on what happened the previous day, where we are as an organization, the solutions we have for our industry. Seeing and hearing from each other keeps our team fired up and connected so that our culture is not at all compromised during this crisis. It is working incredibly well.
I hope those two quick tips helped you. Keep an eye out here on our blog and on our social media channels in the coming days and weeks as I share more of our best practices. For now, stay safe and healthy!