Who Knew It Would Take “Social Distancing” To Bring Us Closer Together
Like many businesses over the course of the last ten years, Motus has increasingly progressed toward a flexible work environment: unlimited vacation, no set office hours, flexible personal days, no dress code, and the like. Our view has always been to train and evaluate our teams and individuals based on performance and outcomes, not on the number of hours they spent in our offices or staring at each other’s faces. We’ve always put substance over form.
But, just like every other business, we faced a new challenge to our flexible work environment when we instructed all our team members that they HAD to work from home. In Boston, due to some unforeseen circumstances in our building and concern for our team’s safety, we sent our team home in advance of the Governor’s orders. But in Chicago and our other locations we followed the guidance of local officials. Needless to say, flexible work was no longer in our hands to determine … it became a requirement.
The work from home decree for us was not daunting or scary, nor did we have a “practice work from home day” (whatever that means), which many of my CEO peers laid out for me. At Motus, we embraced it as a new paradigm and an opportunity to drive deeper cultural engagement, morale and, ultimately, exercise our core values — being “Curious”, “Brave”, and “Exceptional”. Our team’s willingness to lean-in and the results that followed continue to blow my mind.
Since the first weeks of work from home unfolded, I have participated in numerous CEO round tables and still do as I look to compare notes and learn from others. The tenor of the calls in those early weeks was a consistent one — “our team is actually more productive, but we aren’t counting on that to continue”; “many of our employees seem to be happier with their work from home situations”; “we’ve had to make some adjustments as many of our ‘staff’ (my least favorite term) now have their children also at home, but we are all making it work”. As the weeks have unfolded the sentiments of these same round table participants has begun to shift: “our teams productivity continues to be up”; “we’re thinking about how we set our folks up with more permanent work from home situations — desks, phones, internet, etc.”; “spouses and households seem to be figuring it out, but it would certainly be easier if kids were in school or daycares were operational”. The tenor is certainly evolving.
Beyond everyone’s adjustment to the fact that old paradigms and what have now been proven as false truisms are fading, I have been blown away by the fact that our team is actually more connected and in even greater contact with each other and our customers. Our Sales and Marketing teams continue to operate within normal bands of performance, our Operations and Customer Success teams have seen improved service levels due to increased touch points with our clients and end users, and our back-office teams are still doing their thing. All remotely.
In a strange way “social distancing” has revealed the human side of business. The home office back-drops which provide a glimpse into our team members’ lives as well as the lives of our clients and customers. The occasional young person’s head that pops up on the screen for a brief “hello” — yes, we are also moms and dads. Or the dog or cat rummaging through a home office trash can or simply making a cameo on a background bookshelf. It turns out we are all human, all pretty similar, and all trying to do our best to make our way through CV-19. But this glimpse into the humanity of our teammates, customers and clients and vice-versa has also resulted in better conversations, quicker resolutions and a comfort that we are all just people trying to do our best to help each other. “Neighborly” is the way my grandma would have described this.
Beyond the humanizing of work by working from home, it’s also been amazing to see the programmatic creativity of our team. We now have a Motus Munchkins Reading Hour — spun up by a few of our mothers and immediately jumped on by all of our parents — whereby the older children of Motus read to the younger children of Motus on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week. I’ve had the opportunity to watch a few of these as my own kids participate and it’s a hoot. The kid with the cheerios stuck to their chin, the 9 month old simply staring at the movement of the screen, the two year old whose attention span last a few minutes before they reach to the screen to turn the pages, and the laughter of the older kids as they work to maintain the engagement of their participants and the focus to complete the readings. But, most important, I get to see my team members’ kids — critically important pieces of them as well as their most valued treasures. It’s really cool!
We’ve also done all the other things that have become today’s remote work mainstream: the virtual happy hour, the virtual lunches, the virtual town halls, pretty much anything and everything we used to do, but now it’s virtual, much more efficient, and because we all get to see each other at once it’s actually more engaging. Our Human Resources and Marketing teams have expanded these programs to including cooking shows with our team members, Instagram take-overs, and, my personal favorite, the Motus Music Hour. I am blown away by how many talented musicians and musical spouses we have across our organization. Again, a glimpse into the lives and interests of our several hundred team members that would have otherwise so easily gone unnoticed. And now we’ve begun rolling some of these initiatives out to our end users, allowing them to directly engage in these activities with our team members. Social distancing, bringing us all together in ways previously unimagined.
Perhaps my favorite program that we have rolled out is the simplest one — calling people, checking in on them, talking about anything other than work. We have split up every member of the team across our leadership group and are making “check-in” calls. (And, by “calls”, I mean video calls.) We are currently rotating every two weeks so that we get to check-in with different people and are engaging with one another in a manner we never previously pursued. The open-door policies only brought the same people through doors, the in-office “hey” and “what’s up” or “how are you doing” were cursory. And, getting to a meal or drinks or some other form of face-to-face with every team member simply isn’t feasible. I and my leadership team now get to simply connect with our folks, via screen, but face-to-face with everyone in the comfort of their home. “Really, how are you doing?” “How’s your family?” “What do you think of all of this?” “Anything we could be doing to help you or make this easier or better for you?” “Tell me more about your spouse’s situation.” “Have you connected with this resource or that resource?” And, on, and on, and on. Again, a silver-lining of social distancing.
What I can tell you is this, Motus will never work the same way again. Our benefits and support programs for our team members will never be the same. Our focus on re-allocating the dollars we spend on rent and in-office resources are being examined. How might they be better used to support our team members in their homes, with a more deliberate focus on both virtual and in-person relationship development, sharing and socialization? Who knew the term “social distancing” could result in so much social engagement!
