How To Better Your Company During COVID-19

Before COVID-19 took over the United States, I was lucky enough to be in the audience of the AMA Baltimore’s “Women In The ‘She’-Suite” event. Going into the evening, I didn’t realize how proud I’d be to work for a company that was not only a sponsor of this event, but that also was already aligned with how a successful company should treat its clients and employees. When I first began to write this blog post, I was planning on touching on what Response Labs as a company has done to better the workplace for its employees, but, due to the virus, it’s much bigger than that now. My key takeaways from the event sum up the ways a company can better itself during the COVIDS-19 pandemic.

“There’s no such thing as a typical day”

This couldn’t be more true in the world we live in at the moment. Our employees and clients are currently doing the balance of home/work life in the “new normal” and understand that our clients are dealing with the same. Communication is what ensures that both our clients and employees don’t get completely lost in this new shuffle.

“Don’t be scared to rebrand or quit or expand”

We’re all learning how to navigate this new world at the same time and, unfortunately, there’s no free e-book to download on it. When Response Labs first started this journey 5 weeks ago, we did our best to implement policies to ensure that our employees could be productive while still being able to balance work and life at home. Some of these policies failed, some evolved and some stuck.

One of our most successful new policies is our daily team standup. Every weekday morning at 10AM, our team video conferences with Zoom to go over each person’s hot list for the day. This meeting allows us to catch issues that may have been missed, ensure that everyone’s priorities are correct, and to bring up any other news that would usually be covered in person.

“Growth comes from data”

We have to trust the data. Just like COVID-19, there’s new and different data for our clients’ every week. What was true a week ago, may not necessarily be true today – that’s how quickly the data is changing. How we use all that data, is how we make the best choices for our clients and for our company.

This is nothing new to us at Response Labs. We have always understood how important data is, which is why we’ve put in the time and effort to become a SalesForce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) partner. In addition, all of our team members are either certified in or in the process of getting certified in Google Analytics. Additional training is expected depending on the person’s role.

“Flexible hours”

In order to be successful professionally, you have to have a good work/life balance. This balance is even more of a priority now – when all our work and personal lives are happening within the same 4 walls. One policy that helps with this is flexible hours. Response Labs already had flex hours and a Work From Home policy in place before the virus started, however, this doesn’t mean it wasn’t an adjustment.

Every employee has been thrown into a different situation with different mental and physical needs: some have children, some have pets, some are battling this crisis alone. The virus has affected everyone, in a different way and, for the time being, feasible Work From Home hours will range from 5AM-11PM 5 days a week.