“Everyone’s tired of being online” - Nov 2020
November 2020:
With staff largely working out of the office and with so many new projects starting, Erika knew that it was important to be transparent with employees about the changes and diversification in progress.
“We have a meeting every morning – we have a quick chat about the active projects we’ve got and then, on a Friday, we have a longer meeting, looking at what we’re doing internally in the business because we usually have some kind of change going on at the moment,” Erika told us.
She also explained how the company had turned to technology to keep everyone together.
“To make sure that we’re transparent and the same people have the information they need, when they need it, we use Microsoft Teams and the Office 365 environment.”
By actively putting all the company’s information online and allowing staff to access it, whether directly involved or not, has helped staff feel included.
“It avoids the problems of misunderstanding and people not having the information they need – people can go online, find out what’s going on, rather than feeling they’re out of the loop or isolated,” Erika said.
She also recognised, however, that the online environment is so substitute for face-to-face contact and that she fears staff are getting fatigued at always having to be online.
“I think we’ve reached the point where everyone’s a bit tired with always being online,” she explained. “I think people are finding it quite difficult and sometimes [information] gets lost in translation over video.”
In response, Erika said she’s trying to ensure that staff aren’t wearing themselves out.
“It’s a constant day-to-day of what’s happening and how do we need to be contacting the teams,” she told us about communicating with teams, “We’re working with them to make sure they don’t get digital fatigue.”
Although the North East was in lockdown when we first spoke to Erika, she said that during the summer months, the staff had been encouraged to come into the office in a safe, socially distant way.
“We were getting everybody in on a Friday to catch up and have an admin day, and that was great. Everybody used it as a chance to have a cup of coffee with people and chat, and do some fun things,” she said, which made a big difference to morale.
Erika said that the pandemic had caused a lot of staff to look more closely at their work/life balance.
When it became obvious that working from home would be the new normal for many, she company consulted staff about how they would like to work in the future.
“It was fascinating just to get people to start thinking about what’s right for them and what makes sense for them” Erika reported. “We did the exercise, and then I had a one-to-one with everybody. The feedback was that people wanted a blend of working in the home and office, but the blend was different with different people.”
The focus on a flexible working environment inspired one of Erika’s colleagues to make the move to the Lake District.
“If you’re only going to have to come into the office on a Friday, [you don’t have to live where you work],” she said, “He wanted to move to where he spends more of his leisure time.”
“It’s made the team stronger” - Jan 2021
January 2021:
In the latter stages of 2020 and into the beginning of 2021, the business was hit directly by the pandemic for the first time.
With some staff having to take time off for bereavement and others with the virus themselves, Erika and the wider team now had to deal with both the personal and business implications of the pandemic.
“It’s been quite challenging in that, we dealt with the lockdowns and the impact and implications of that, but we hadn’t actually dealt with the impacts of COVID itself, and with people being off and trying to shuffle work around,” Erika said.
Despite the difficulties, both personal and professional, Erika said that the team had managed to pull through and continue with some of the most testing projects they had ever experienced.
“It’s made the team stronger because we’ve shared the workload and helped each other out, and picked up elements of work that traditionally wouldn’t be in our sphere.”
Erika also spoke of an unexpected twist to the situation: the power of networking.
With key members of staff away, the business was forced to look elsewhere for the necessary skills and knowledge, which brought them into contact with other companies within their sphere.
“In some ways, it’s really strengthened that local [business] network, and understanding who you can rely on, and where you get support from other businesses,” Erika explained.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to reciprocate that when other people need it.”
Another key topic surrounding the issue of staff wellbeing is how and where colleagues will work in the future.
The increased flexibility surrounding working hours and location brought on by the pandemic has led many businesses to re-evaluate the ‘return to the office’ as restrictions ease. TSG Marine is one such business.
Looking back to the start of the pandemic, Erika feels that she and the team were not quick enough to adapt to flexible working hours, maintaining, as Erika called it, the ‘status quo’ of usual office hours.
Now, however, staff are merely required to attend the 9.30 all-hands call, but it’s flexible as to when they choose to start.
“I don’t know when [everyone] starts, but I know everyone’s online for 9.30,” Erika went on. “They start the day when it suits them.”
“I start early and then I finish at 4 or 4.30 like I used to do, but then that suits my lifestyle with having the kids, but I know some of the [team] work later.”
Erika added that, by trusting her staff to meet client deadlines, she has no need to check up on them or manage their working hours via an internal system.
“One of the biggest things has just been being a bit more relaxed, and putting more emphasis on what the real end goal is instead of working hours,” she explained.
“It’s about moving to an environment where you trust everybody to get their work done when works for them, provided all client deadlines are met. That’s what we’ve really focused on – provided the work is completed and everyone’s pulling their weight, then when you’re doing it is much less important.”
“Then, on the human side, it’s making sure that we’re supporting people when they’re having problems, and help them through whatever the challenge is,” Erika went on.
Erika believes that this focus on flexible working has made staff happier and improved drive and productivity.
“You’re getting the best out of people because they’re working when it makes sense for them,” she explained, adding that the decision had been made that staff wouldn’t be required to come back to the office full time once restrictions were eased.
“We’ve already made the commitment that people can work as they wish Monday to Thursday, and then we’ll get everybody in on a Friday.”
“Some people want to spend some time in the office because that makes sense to them and they want to have that change in environment, and some people want to work from home – it’s all about what works for them,” she concluded.
“It’s about setting a compelling vision” - March 2021
March 2021:
Throughout 2020, many business leaders have identified the need to re-emphasise, or even develop, their company’s core visions and values.
Previously, Erika had spoken about how the business had become stuck in a “comfort zone” before the pandemic, but had used the situation as a catalyst for change and innovation within the company.
When asked how she would prevent the business from slipping back into that “comfort zone,” Erika emphasised the importance of having a strong, progressive culture:
“I don’t think there’s any advantage to us in slipping backwards into that comfort zone,” she explained.
She added that, from an innovation point of view, the new diversification kept everyone interested and busy.
“That was always one of the things that I was kind concerned about because we built a culture internally where people were used to doing new things and being involved at the front end of new technologies or new ways of doing things,” Erika went on.
Erika feared that staff would lose interest and that the company would lose talent if the business repeated the same tasks again and again within the smaller projects the company now undertook.
“What we’ve found is, we are repeating things more, but as individuals, we’re doing such a variety of things that people are kept busy and interested, and there’s opportunity for innovation and creativity in that space as well.”
When it comes to building a company culture that thrives on these sorts of opportunities, Erika highlighted the importance of setting a compelling vision at the outset.
“Being clear about where the company is going and being bold enough to say it” was also key, she added.
“Being bold is what gets people excited and gets people aligned behind that vision,” Erika went on.
“Then people will look for a way that they can contribute to achieving whatever that vision is – if people know where you’re going, they’re going to think of ways to bridge that gap.”
Erika believes that the curation of a strong company culture is a collective responsibility, not one that should be decided by the few, and she added that the pandemic had helped lead that change within the business.
By working from home, staff had automatically taken much more accountability for themselves rather than being driven by the collection behaviour in an office.
The other key element to building a strong culture, Erika added, was trust.
“I genuinely don’t think you get any innovation or creativity if the people who work in the business don’t trust the organisation or each other,” she said.
“You won’t get people speaking up with new ideas if they don’t trust that that will be welcomed or that they will have a positive experience.”
“We make sure that people trust the business and trust each other, and if you trust the people you work for, you’re putting yourself out there to be developed. If you throw an idea out there and then ask what everyone else thinks, people will give you feedback.”
With the success of the business continuing, the prospects of hiring are large. For Erika, emphasising the core visions and values of the company from the outset was a key part of the hiring process.
“You need to be clear on where you’re going and clear on what values you share within your culture, and the values that you need in order to achieve what it is you’re trying to achieve.”
She added that it was also imperative to have a process by which you can access the widest possible base of applicants that then allows you to assess people’s alignment in those core values.
“The more perspectives you can get in an organisation, the stronger the organisation will be and the easier it will be to achieve,” Erika concluded.