Yesterday was Tango Card’s monthly company meeting—but of course this month was anything but standard with topics covering:
- What we know—about COVID-19 and its impact and trajectory
- What we’re doing—to respond to and prepare for what we know and believe
- How we can help others (we’ll be covering this in a later article!)
What We Know
We’re Working from Home
All of our employees are now working from home (WFH) for the foreseeable future. We’re fortunate that we already have a strong flexible work policy. This looks like:
- Many members of our team regularly work from home
- A solid teleconference system that we use for company and customer meetings
- Various tools and systems that support increased remote communications
All of this means we were partially prepared for the changes COVID-19 has brought—but still, WFH as an option is different than it becoming a requirement overnight.
We’re Not Traveling
No employees are travelling for work; we’re completely grounded. This means no in-person conferences with customers and prospects, and no inter-office travel for cross training, product development, and team camaraderie.
We’re All Transitioning to a Different Way of Working
The last piece is acknowledging that this isn’t a new normal. We’re all functioning under a crisis and every person on our team is dealing with our new reality in a different way. It’s an understatement to say this can be hard and stressful, but we’re committed to helping our employees and customers transition as best we can.
What We’re Doing
As a company, there are a few specific things we’re doing right now to support our teams amidst so much change.
Increasing Our Communication
Internal Blog
On February 29, which already seems like ancient history, I wrote and shared a blog post outlining:
- Work and personal travel guidance
- Changes to our WFH policy
- The CDC and WHO’s guidance—including regular and correct handwashing
Since that initial blog post, I have updated and added to this guidance almost daily.
Daily Standups
Most of our teams have implemented short, daily standups. These facilitate critical coordination—but just as importantly, they also serve to keep people connected.
Remote Company Meeting
We had our first 100% remote monthly company meeting yesterday and spent it talking about what COVID-19 and its consequences mean for all of us. Our guiding principle—consistent with our core value of transparency—is to share as much accurate information as quickly as possible to all employees.
Stepping Up Employee Recognition
Our team, like those everywhere, is stepping up and trying to do the best thing for the company. We recognize that people are under a lot of pressure and experiencing stress because of circumstances, such as:
- Working from home for the first time
- No home office
- Kids are home from cancelled school and daycare
- Relatives that may be sick
On top of these stressors, our employees are working harder and more hours to support our customers while managing constant changes in their personal lives, such as canceled plans, rescheduled travel, and extended periods of isolation due to shelter-in-place orders from their local government.
Delivery Reward Link
To help recognize these pressures, we sent our employees a $50 Delivery Reward Link. This digital card allows the recipient to spend the $50 value on DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber, and other brands. Our goals were to accomplish the following:
- Recognize our employees for their hard work
- Provide support and relief by covering one or more of their meals
- Support local restaurants that may be struggling
Spot Bonuses
We’re increasing our use of spot bonuses as team members are asked to step up in ways we could never have predicted.
Fine-Tuning Existing Tools
Like many companies today, we use software to support employee engagement, peer-to-peer high-fives, online training, team communication and collaboration, and customer support. These tools are more important than ever as we’re no longer able to walk to a colleague’s desk to collaborate.
Our IT team has increased their focus in three areas:
Upgrades
When we held our first 100% remote company meeting, some people were unable to join. Lesson learned: Increase capacity.
Setting Expectations
Leadership and IT have emphasized clarity while restating the rules of the road and setting expectations. In Slack, for example, this looks like reminding and training folks on the impact of sending a message versus adding @here or adding @channel—which are very different things!
Online Training
We’re relying more than ever on online training to keep everyone up to speed. This is an area where we may leverage our own incentive and reward capabilities over time.
What’s Next for Us
We’ll continue to evolve as will everyone else—especially given how much we’ve already changed in less than one month. It’s also my personal belief that this ability for us to change and evolve is, at its core, a message of hope.
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