A Caring Culture is a Resilient Culture

The COVID-19 experience is certainly “novel” for many of us. I’ve never seen the country shut down to the level it has in recent weeks. It is hard to find a corollary experience. After the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, streets were emptied, planes grounded, businesses temporarily closed. We quickly recovered and got back on our feet, determined to stand up to terrorism. We are a resilient species. Our near-term future is uncertain, but we will recover from this too. We will be stronger for it. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however dark it seems now.

We are truly blessed in the information technology industry. A large number of us can work from home for short periods without significant disruptions to our projects or roadmaps. It is a stark contrast to the many heroes bravely risking their lives in industries such as healthcare, public services, and essential retail. This is something that has often been in my thoughts the past few weeks.

Being blessed doesn’t eliminate the need to care for our employees during these difficult times. Different people handle tough situations in different ways. We certainly need to address the needs of employees at an individual level, but it is important to build a culture that is resilient during times of strife. This will not be the last time we face a global event of this magnitude.

Communicate. Adapt. Reassure. Evolve.

C — Communicate

A culture of transparency is core to resiliency. It is of the utmost importance to communicate, and over-communicate, during uncertain times. Employees should not be left to speculate about topics such as the state of the business, changes in policy, or peers that may be affected directly. This does not always have to be in the context of a virtual “all hands”. Even announcements in public channels of a collaboration tool like Slack can enhance and streamline communications. Keep the information flowing in a measured and consistent manner.

A — Adapt

Being adaptive means having a culture that is amenable to changes in schedule, sick leave, and other priority interrupts that will happen when a company goes into prolonged periods of work from home. It is good to reframe your thinking to not focus on the problem that is causing the change, but how you will react to it when it does. Again collaboration tools like Slack help here, where employees can efficiently start direct video conversations if needed, or update their online status if they need to attend to a child or address a personal matter. It is important, culturally, for this to be “ok”. A company that is very adaptive to change may incur little impact from world events of this magnitude.

R — Reassure

Reassurance is a very specialized form of communication, but it deserves to be called out given its importance to creating a caring and resilient culture. It is good to remind your employees that the current situation is temporary and reiterate what the current business goals are. If those goals change based on the economy, over-communicate early and often. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt is the enemy here, often a little bit of reassurance goes a long way. Different employees may need different levels of reassurance. A good place to give more personal reassurance is during management one-on-ones.

E — Evolve

It is likely that with the current situation extending from weeks into months, your business is operating quite differently than it did at the beginning of the year. I suspect many businesses are finding that employees working from home are more productive than they initially predicted. Keep track of what is working and what is not. Use that information to help your business evolve to become as efficient as it can during the crisis. Don’t be afraid to make changes. Most importantly, don’t feel you have to ditch all the tools or policies that came into play during the lockdown. A few months from now we won’t have all employees working from home, but a clearly defined work from home policy will be very well received. You may find that being forced to go all-in on a collaboration tool has made you a better business.

A Little Levity is OK, Too

We should be respectful to the many challenges being faced by so many in this country. It’s important to remember that levity, and a culture that embraces levity, is important to resiliency. I have seen an appropriately timed joke immediately lower the stress of an entire room in a split second. Use it, and don’t be afraid to embrace it in hard times. It’s ok to smile.

This Too Shall Pass

I have been filled with pride in the last few weeks watching the employees of Strivacity adapt during this crisis. They’ve done it with the utmost level of professionalism, pride, and efficiency. I hope that they’ve felt a high level of transparency, flexibility, and reassurance during these challenging times. I am sure that we will evolve too. I hope that we will all come out of this a more caring and resilient society.

Edit (4/2/2020): I got some push-back on the original choice of photo (a handshake) —understandably so. I’ve updated it.