How we’re keeping our employees and clients close from a distance
April 6, 2020
A lot has changed over the past few weeks with COVID-19. We’re all going through this together. Like many other tech teams, TrueMotion is practicing social distancing by working from home. While we’re all adjusting to new at-home routines – juggling work and family, figuring out food logistics, and battling the “COVID 19” – the most important thing we can do right now is this: show one another compassion and support.
At TrueMotion, we recognize how lucky we are to work on an awesome team with amazing customers. We’re committed to doing everything we can do to help our team and customers get through this stressful time. Here are a few initiatives we’ve started to keep our team healthy, safe, and productive:
Our response team
In response to the escalating coronavirus crisis, we created a pandemic response team at the beginning of March. The team is made up of leaders from our people ops, finance, and security teams. It meets every day and is responsible for monitoring the CDC’s guidelines, providing updates to our team, and ensuring that we’re meeting the needs of our team and business.
Helpful resources
We’ve always had a flexible workplace. But people aren’t used to working from home all day, every day – with kids and other family at home together. To help the team handle the new challenges, our people ops team created a resource folder that’s full of remote work tips and tricks. Most are simple – like stick to the hours you kept when you were commuting – but they really help.
More communication & focus hours
TrueMotion has been using Zoom and Slack to communicate for years. Everyone knows how they work. But, with everyone at home, we need to strike a balance between staying connected and avoiding too many meetings and Slacks. We’ve set up Zoom meeting rooms for every team, so teams can work more efficiently together online. We’ve also designated focus hours every week – read: no meetings! And, we’ve eliminated lunch meetings so our team has time to step away from their computers, make lunch, hug their kids, and get some fresh air.
We’re also checking in more frequently with our customers. We want to make sure we’re in sync on their priorities and needs, and, as always, help them be as successful as possible.
Make traditions virtual
TrueMotion has a lot of daily and weekly traditions that are a big part of our culture. We usually do these together in the office. We can’t give these up – especially when personal interaction is at an all-time low. So, we’ve taken our traditions to Zoom.
We have our standup every day at 11:45. Our entire team calls in to learn about what each team is working on (with their virtual backgrounds, of course!). Our daily stretch follows stand-up. We do Zoom “FunRuns” every Thursday at 4:00 where we run together (but separately). Then we crack open a beer together in our kitchens and living rooms for Thirsty Thursday.
Create new traditions
Our team has also started some new traditions. We take walks together after lunch on Zoom. We schedule Zoom playdates for parents with young kids. We host new events like a virtual wine tasting with our Women in Motion group. And, we do WFH-workouts every Tuesday and Thursday – family members can join too!
New Slack channels
Our team has been turning to Slack for advice, humor, and updates since the beginning of the pandemic. We’ve started a “Thrivalist-Guide” channel for anyone looking for new books, recipes, or other hobbies to do while they’re stuck at home. Our people ops team started “Daily Dose of Happiness” to fill our hearts with cute animal videos and more!
We’re proud of our team’s commitment to each other and our customers during this hard time. We’re taking it day by day and learning what’s working, what isn’t, and doing what we do best – iterating to come up with new solutions.
We can all learn from each other right now. What’s your team doing to help your team be happy, healthy, and successful?
