Uncommon CEx Day: How We Stay Connected During This Pandemic
“Mangan Ora Mangan Sing Penting Ngumpul”
Maybe we’ve all heard of this Javanese proverb, which means ‘gathering is the most important thing’. If we associate it with the current conditions, ‘gathering’ is something that everyone misses during this pandemic. Tokopedia has applied Work from Home (WFH) system since 16 March 2020. It is nice to be able to work from our home, but we feel something is missing. Usually, at 12.00 PM, Nakama will have lunch together, but now it seems that the activity must be responded to for a while since maintaining our health is more important.
Some Customer Excellence Nakama fun facts during WFH
Because everyone is missing their friends, we, as a Service Culture team took the initiative to gather Nakama Customer Excellence (CEx) online and conduct a fun small-scale research to find out about Nakama’s activities during WFH. The survey contains simple questions about Nakama’s activities and skills that were improved by Nakama during WFH. 98 of CEx Nakama filled the survey and shared their stories. Let’s start with the questions related to skills first.
46% of CEx Nakama answered that their cooking skills increased during WFH. No wonder because there are so many social media challenges that we can join, such as making dalgona coffee or cooking tutorials on TikTok. On the other hand, we found that 32% of CEx Nakama exercised more frequently during WFH, due to the reduced travel hours.
“During WFH, I run regularly in the morning or play badminton. Unfortunately, because I rarely exercise, during the first week, my arms and legs become sore. I can’t even walk.” — Esti, Customer Operations Specialist
Let’s continue with the next question. This second question asks what new things Nakama got during WFH.
70% of CEx Nakama answered that WFH got more savings. As previously mentioned, Nakama doesn’t need to go to the office and of course it can save on travel costs or some of them probably cook for their family so that it will give more efficient cost instead of eating outside. Also, 60% of Nakama answered that they had more flexible time and then followed by getting closer relations with their family members.
“I usually sleep all day on Saturday because I work from Monday to Friday and get tired from commuting. But since WFH, I become more productive on the weekend, I can help my mom’s cook and clean the house. Also it’s time for building bonds with the family members. I’m so proud of myself.”
— Trias, Senior Operations Compliance
Let’s continue with another question.
Based on the survey, the thing that CEx Nakama misses the most is their friends for 55% and followed by food and beverage stores around the office such as Family Mart, MOR, Starbucks and others. They usually consume those F&B after lunch break for snacks at work.
“I really miss my friend, discussion in the middle of the work, and having a coffee together” — Alya, Customer Communication and Education
“Uncommon CEx Day”: Start transforming from offline to online
This activity was usually done directly face to face, but due to this pandemic condition, it is our job to make them still safe and convert this activity into online. On the other hand, since we haven’t seen each other in a month, it seems like the “Ngumpul” agenda is very interesting. For additional information, “Uncommon CEx Day” is our routine program that is scheduled every month that aims to open our minds about new things. But since our agenda is to cure boredom and wanted to gather all the CEx Nakama we started our first biggest gathering with something easy.
On 8 April 2020, we held Uncommon CEx Day in an online version for the first time. This idea actually came from Mr. Rudy (VP of Customer Excellence) who wanted to gather the entire CEx team, but we slightly modified the idea to make it more interesting not just gathering and telling stories. Beside conducting small-scale research we also invited a secret guest star who will be taking part in the “Uncommon CEx Day” event, this guest star also will bring a little surprise for CEx Nakama.
The event went well; more than 120 CEx Nakama attended and shared their stories during WFH. This event begins with a story from Rudy Dalimunthe, VP of Customer Excellence and continues with revealing some fun facts from the survey results. After that, we also allowed other Nakama to tell their unique stories during WFH. Jokes and laughter appeared in the conference call chat room.
“Once in a while, I wore a decent outfit during WFH from head to toe. I also wear my shoes and use perfume and pomade so I can get excited just like working in the office.” — Birowo, Operations People & Services
Guest Stars and Virtual Room Tour
Unlike the usual “Uncommon CEx Day”, in this session, we invited Tokopedia Security Officers and Office Assistants (OA) to join, tell the story and take us to virtual room tours. Yes, OA and Security Officers take turns, ensuring that the office remains in good condition. They brought us to do a virtual room tour to each floor in the office. While accompanying Nakama for a walk, they also share the current office conditions. The office became so quiet and they missed the hustle and bustle of lunchtime. We miss it too.
OA took us to every corner of the room, and it looked clean, even our belongings remained in the last position we left the office. At the end of the session, they told Nakama to maintain their health during this pandemic. Stay healthy, Mas OA and Pak Security, thank you for taking us walking around the office virtually.
Amid this pandemic, maintaining our health and doing physical distancing is essential, but it’s also very important to stay connected with each other and check each other’s conditions. As written in the R. A. Kartini book, ‘After Darkness, Light Is Born’, every human being will experience hard times, but will also experience happy times afterward.
Don’t give up and rest assured that this pandemic will end soon. Take care of your health because we will surely ‘Ngumpul’ again.
