How We Kept Our Global Remote Teams Engaged During a Pandemic
By Mathilde Rimbert, Global Internal Communications Manager at Glovo
COVID-19 brought a difficult but exciting challenge, it faded the concept of a physical workplace as full-time remote work is becoming the new normal.
As Glovo’s internal communications manager, I wanted to share how crucial it has been for my team to keep employee engagement levels high in this situation by implementing new projects/activities and by continuing to strengthen our amazing company culture.
______
Why are remote team engagement initiatives so important?
Social distancing and working remotely are a difficult transition for humans. We are social beings, after all. Prolonged work from home can make people feel isolated, depressed, lonely, and lead to lower overall morale.
Therefore, as an organization, as an internal communications department, and as leaders we need to focus on keeping employees’ spirits high now more than ever.
I’m a true believer that interaction and communication with teams helps strengthen relationships, builds trust, and supports personal wellbeing. Virtual events/activities help reduce feelings of isolation and promote a sense of belonging.
Here are a few new initiatives we put in place at Glovo to keep our teams committed and connected:
_______
Virtual Classes by Glovo for Glovo — #SharingIsCaring
We knew Glovo was full of talented people that have so many things to share and learn from each other.
Since I joined Glovo, it impressed me how much time and effort our people dedicated to entertain, help, and coach others. This proved to be truer than ever when we sent out a Call for Volunteers for our new Virtual Classes initiative. Sports lovers, passionate cooks, music amateurs, language experts, etc. reached out to offer their time to teach and entertain fellow employees around the globe.
During the pandemic, we built and promoted an online calendar of classes accessible to everyone within the organization. Each employee could select and join the classes they wanted to attend. From Crossfit to Yoga, Astrology, Catalan language lessons, Egyptian language lessons, Vegan cooking classes, drum lessons, Guitar lessons, Marketing analytics classes, or even piano and guitar live sessions, we tried to strengthen human connections and bonding to keep everyone energized and motivated in difficult times.
We recorded the classes and made them accessible to everyone who wasn’t able to attend the live session.
Glovolingual — #LanguageGlovers
We have over 74 nationalities at Glovo, we’ve got a truly polyglot workplace. We have people that lived in countries where they did not speak the language, or people that felt the need to learn or improve another language.
So we thought: What if we asked our own internal language experts to get involved?
And this is how Glovolingual, a peer-to-peer language buddy programme, was born.
We surveyed everyone interested in this new buddy language program to understand which language they would like to learn and which language they would teach; and their current level (beginner, intermediate, fluent/native).
We ended up receiving hundreds of volunteers and responses. We did our best in matching people by following their criteria in terms of the language they wanted to learn and were able to teach. We communicated the matches with some best practices so that everyone could find out their assigned buddy(ies) and plan their first language virtual meetups.
E-Culture Day — #LearningIsBonding
Every quarter, we book a few hours on everyone’s calendar globally to touch base on what’s been happening in the business, to learn about important projects and initiatives, to discuss the global strategy, to talk about the future of the organization, and to celebrate accomplishments. We call it Culture Day.
The challenge: how to adapt the original format (in-person) to the current situation and organize it fully virtual?
So, we made it happen. We gave life to the brand new e-culture day — remote edition.
The concept: a half-day full of learning. Deep-dive sessions on the business, country news, and self-development topics. Everyone got invited to this festival of content with various virtual stages and speakers. The lineup was shared in advance so that it was easy for everyone to choose the sessions they wanted to attend. A newsletter, dedicated calendar, slack channel, and zoom webinars — we made the best out of our existing internal communication channels.
From Spotlight on Kazakhstan to A Day to Day Among Investors, Machine Learning, Immersion Into Our Cook Room, Everyone is a Salesperson, Creativity & Innovation, Self-Awareness, Diversity & Inclusion or even Unboxing Career Development (and much more), we all learned a ton and finished the day feeling inspired and energized. This event brought us closer together, regardless of the distance.
Glovo Got Talent — #GlovoRocks
You’ve probably heard and seen the “One World: Together At Home” concert organized by Lady Gaga and broadcasted live on Saturday, April 18, during the quarantine. Well, we did (tried ;)) to do the same at our level: a live musical performance for all our employees around the globe with an amazing internal lineup.
I told you at the beginning of this article that Glovo was full of internal talent and I can assure you that some of our employee musicians and singers set our virtual stage on fire!
Our musician employees helped us figure out what would be the best platform for a live concert, the best software for sound to download, etc.
After some rehearsal sessions and a bit of stress that lasted until the very last second, we kept asking ourselves “is it gonna work?”
And then the magic happened. The fan crowd got bigger and bigger and we made it happen!
_______
Reflecting on the positive side of this brand-new fully remote situation (as it is the way we like looking at things at Glovo), it definitely pushed us to find new ways of fostering engagement and providing for the very first time the exact same experience for all employees whatever the country they were working in.
Some projects were one-off efforts, while other initiatives became recurrent ones that the company wants to keep alive.
This wouldn’t have been possible without the eagerness and willingness of Glovo employees to take part in it and play a huge role in sharing their knowledge and passion.
I’m very proud of working in such a collaborative and fun environment and contributing to my level of fostering it.
