Bogdan POPOVICI – Business Development Consultant
Tell us about what happened with you & your company in the first weeks of this crisis
This crisis had only one rule, health and safety come first!
Let’s all admit that these are tough, unprecedented times and we are all in this together.
Our first week was crisis management set-up, focusing on immediate actions for health and safety. The next couple of days we worked on reshaping the business for the new reality.
The company provided all the necessary equipment and IT support for the smooth running of remote activity. We have adapted very quickly, and we managed to implement Teleworking policy to all employees. Personally, I adapted very quickly to work from home, since I saw it as a great opportunity.
What are your company’ top 5 priorities in this period?
Providing tailored safety and wellbeing solutions for our employees is our prime focus area now and we do our best to provide them all the necessary tools so that they can perform from any other places than the office.
Optimize and automate processes to boost productivity because we want to give our employees more time to focus on what matters most: making customers happy and helping them to stay one step ahead of their competition.
The biggest challenges, right now, for any organization are business continuity and exceeding customer expectations. In addition, we are using the existing business ecosystem in order to consolidate our partnerships and to attract new ones as well.
Adapting our company organizational culture to the new way of working from home. This shift pushed us to find the right work-life balance in an always-on culture, to choose the right technologies to get the work done, and to remotely manage employees.
Using digital technologies in order to optimize existing internal business processes, company culture, customer and employee experience.
What were your challenges and how did you overcome them?
Working from home should not limit communication and cooperation, so our first priority was to find and share accurate information and contacts among many locations. These included strong and continuous communication, granting access on a need to know basis to specific information and improving our meeting protocols to make them more effective. For example, the team meetings were plan on specific days, the presentation and the debates were successfully moved online, and everything continued following as usual.
In terms of business we talked to each customer to assure them that work from home will be done under the same safe and security standards and to understand exactly their challenges in this period. We adapted to each customer specific conditions. For some we had to find solutions for a decrease in activity with 30% to 50%, but for most of our clients we had to prepare the team for a much higher volume of activity compared to a normal period (+150%).
Mihaela Gabriela Prodan, Marketing Coordinator – Valoris Center
How did you adapt to the new working conditions?
I choose to keep a positive mindset during the coronavirus pandemic and march forward with determination and hope. As things change around us, it’s important to find the new level of normal and to ways feel in control. More precisely, I created a daily routine to work efficiently: I wake up early in the morning and, after de shower, I make my breakfast. I change into work clothes and open the laptop next to a steaming coffee. I set my “to do list” for the current day and I reply to the remaining emails from the previous day. After work I also make time for relaxing activities such as cooking and watching a movie. I try to be as selective as I can about the news, and I check them from at least three sources in order to avoid fake news.
How did you organize your workspace at home? How does your office look like?
I strongly believe that working from home is about discipline, good communication and collaboration. I tried to recreate the same office workspace as much as possible with a designated physical workspace at home. My new office it’s a cosy corner and it feels isolated from the rest of my home. I keep the “home office” simple and organized: great desk, good laptop, high speed internet access and a few decorations.
How do you stay motivated and productive? – tips & tricks of WFH
Even by choice or by necessity, working from home has its benefits, like flexible schedule, cosy clothes and so on.
When I work from home, I wake up early and I like to start the day by making a “to do list” that I try to respect for the rest of the day. After that, I check in on employees at the start of each day to be sure that they are fine and safe. We also run daily/weekly updates over Teams call meetings to keep people in touch and connected.
During the day I take regular short breaks, I stand up and move around.
I try to get creative with how I stay in touch and make it fun with my team.
What do you miss from the “old days” when you were at the office?
I especially miss my team, my colleagues, but also the office atmosphere and all the internal events that brought us together. Luckily, thanks to technology and Teams video conferencing, we can keep all employees in touch and active.
