Friday, March 13th, was just another sunny Friday headed into Spring filled with important client projects, a lunchtime walk with colleagues, our office DJ spinning afternoon jams, and a closing time beer to celebrate a week of hard work. Of course, talk of the COVID crisis was swirling around. There were even conversations popping up that maybe we’d spend a few weeks working from home to flatten the curve. But who knew that day would be our last as “business as usual” for the foreseeable future, let alone the next eight months? I never imagined when I said “goodbye” to my co-workers that day just how much life was about to change. The following Monday, I found myself in a very new “business as usual,” working alone from my kitchen table, feeling a bit anxious about the state of the world, and now, very suddenly, very disconnected from my company and co-workers.
When you work at a company like Personify, where culture is woven into every aspect of your work and a driving force of the business, how do you keep it alive and well during what seems to be an endless pandemic necessitating a perpetual state of “work from home”? How do you keep a thriving group of people feeling engaged and connected? How do you do that while also supporting them and the business through a global pandemic? How?
When your culture is togetherness, and you’re not, you have to find new ways and reasons for people to stay connected and realize that none of us is alone even though we are all apart.
Personify got creative and found new ways for our employees to connect, engage, and bond.
Because caring for our community is a part of who we are, we went to work creating and mailing gift packages and hundreds of hand-written notes to thank nurses on the front lines battling COVID.
We loaded up 1,000 take-out meals and fed first responders at a North Carolina hospital serving under-served, rural communities.
We took our annual Personify Olympics virtual and raised money for local children in need of home school supplies.
We hosted virtual end of week happy hours to make sure we could see everyone’s face (and kids, and dogs, and those kitchen tables turned desks).
We held socially distanced Monday meetings in a local park, and we surprised co-workers with small gestures of gratitude to make sure they felt continuously supported and appreciated.
We got our people outside and into the sunshine with a friendly walk challenge, and we occasionally took “breather” days here and there to unplug from the home office and recharge our batteries.
We organized a lunchtime drive by for an employee who is the heart of our company on a day when she needed it most.
We celebrated quarterly Core Value Award winners with a little virtual flair.
We walked “virtually” as a company more than 2,600 miles from Raleigh to California.
Personify got creative.
When culture is the thickest thread of the company’s fabric, you make sure the people know they are all in it together. How did your company make sure their people were working from home, but not alone?
#culture #howiPFY #recruiting #rpo