Coping with Covid-19, and stretching our hands beyond physical distancing
We have been working remotely (from home) for +5 weeks, and it still feels surreal.
More than a month has gone by since we announced we will be working remote-first from 16th of March at Mindera Portugal. The other locations: UK, India, US also followed suit a few days or a week later as each country’s situation changed.
As weeks turned into a month, we now know this is not going to last just a couple of weeks… For some of us this has been easier (than we were expecting?) and for others quite the opposite. Not seeing people face to face, not having that connection can definitely take a toll on everyone, and mental health should be on our priority list.
Dealing with this new normal, while we are still coping with losing the old normal, is uneasy. It’s ok not to be ok sometimes…, it’s ok to ask for help…, it’s ok to also be ok.
Our local and global situation changes daily, and we are all navigating through this, trying things ourselves to see what works.
Creating a working schedule, setting up our work spot in our home, trying to replace get-togethers with online video calls… feels as if this all falls short when compared to face to face interaction, and we can all get creative in building new human experiences to foster memories and connect with others.
We feel grateful to be in a company that can work remotely, and we are focusing on continuing to add value to our clients, protecting our people and serving the community around us.
It was the first time we have changed our operations to remote first, and with everything that is new we have found some challenges. Do people have the right conditions in their house to work? Do we have to buy more equipment? Do people have an internet connection in their home that will enable them to continue to work seamlessly?
For us, it was clear that we wanted to put our teams safe and have the basic conditions for them to work. We have asked everyone to fill in a doc with office material that they would need: simple things that at the end of an 8 hour workday from home can make all the difference. Do you need an office chair? A desk? A second screen? We have collected all needs and delivered those to the house of our Minders.
“I’ve tried to work from my dinner table chair and it was ok for 2 days then I’ve asked for my chair and screen. I’ve never used a mouse with the laptop, but after a week, I’ve requested a mouse because my wrist was hurting.” These little things have a huge impact on my productivity!
Everyone is doing their best to cope with this situation. Now it’s normal to have our kids popping up in our business meetings, having the pyjama pants with a hoodie during work hours, or having the screen blocked by our cat while doing a presentation! It’s like being human it’s the new normal. Somehow work it’s more simple and honest with a virtual twist.
Before we hit the button to remote first, we were planning a Tech Day in our offices. The turnaround was immediate: let’s make this a virtual event! We had no idea how to do it, we even discussed if we should do it in a time like this, where people are facing such adversity… But our team was in sync in terms of the purpose of this event: to share knowledge and connect with others, something that can help a lot of people in this time of confinement. And so we did it. We put a virtual crew together of 20 people, started communications, testing different platforms, and last Saturday on the 18th of April at 2:00 p.m. we were streaming live on youtube. 8 speakers shared their thoughts and passions on the topics they value or have been working. It was a wonderful experience and the feedback was great! We had at some point around 300 people watching it live. (feel free to take a look at the event on the link below if you have missed it)
We feel very hopeful when we see so many initiatives to help others in this dire situation. Tech for Covid (https://tech4covid19.org/) is probably one you have heard in Portugal, but many others are surfacing everywhere in all countries: from 3D printing of face shields for healthcare providers; to collecting and broadcasting local businesses online as alternatives to big known retailers, to supplying computers for kids to continue their education… We see so much collaboration and generosity, that we have no option than to believe everything is going to be ok (insert rainbow here).
At Mindera we are keeping our monthly payments to most of our suppliers and transforming the service they used to provide us, into a helping hand to those who need it most: our cleaning service is using the monthly hours to clean health centres, our bread and fruit suppliers are providing meals and fresh fruit to nurses and doctors in our city hospitals, and we are also giving old stocked laptops a second life. Stocked laptops are now in the hands of children in Social Institutions and colleagues with children, so they can do school activities or follow remote classes. This is nothing compared to what healthcare providers are doing in the front lines, but if every company and individual does a little bit, all the little bits combined can go a long way.
We know that, if we can hold on and make the right business decision during this phase (that we don’t know how long is going to take) we will be stronger and in better shape than ever, to catch the wave again. We believed that there is a life before, during and after COVID-19, and to be honest with you, we can only be better persons at the end of all this. This experience will shape us in a way that it will transform our business, we still don’t know how, but it will!
When we get out from the other side of this, we will be holding our hearts with our hands and remembering all the hands that we were holding while we couldn’t be near each other.
Until we can see and hug each other at the office again, be there for yourself and others…
wrote in collaboration by Pedro T. and Sofia R.
