At Voxel Group, we want to contribute to the management of the COVID-19 crisis that we are all confronting worldwide. This is why we have decided to explain how we are managing this situation internally. Our main objective is to provide ideas that can help other companies bear this major crisis and contribute to a prompt recovery of the economy.
This initiative is aligned with our final purpose as a company, help to create a happy business network. At Voxel, we believe that a workplace must be an open space where employees are happy and motivated, as they are the key element who takes care of the business, and where they work in high-performance teams while our work is respectful and responsible with the environment. The determination to be a healthy company ,is what provides us with the highest capacity to be resilient in crisis situations.
Therefore, our first actions to face the crisis are aligned with three main objectives, create a shared vision and context information with all the organisation, concentrate on short-term strategic initiatives and guarantee a total synchronization of the organisation in an unpredictable moment while we are teleworking. All of this, while we keep investing in our future: people, culture and consciousness.
Shared context and vision
It is key for the organisation to have the same vision of the current context, taking into account the situation of our sector, clients, similar companies, decisions taken and recovery expectations. The shared vision is fundamental as it will allow us to completely align the company with the current situation, as well as with the next steps and what aspects could require some help.
In Voxel’s case, the CEO of the Group, Àngel Garrido, makes 3 small communications to all the organisation each week via a video-conference. The aim is to keep everyone updated with the current situation of the companyand what decisions are being made and how these evolve. In his words,the company does not exist, what exists are the people who make it possible”, and only what we do all together will make us successful
On the other hand, it is important to be optimistic with the prompt recovery. Therefore, the President of Voxel, Xavier Ginesta, sent an inspirational communication including all the scientific advances in coronavirus, the result of the collaboration of worldwide experts.
Complete focus
In order to transform the crisis to an opportunity, we decided to put our focus to the key initiatives of the business, which some of these were complicated to carry out during our daily work, and reprioritise the rest. This decision involved:
- Choosing strategicand concrete initiative and split them even moreto obtain short-term results.
- Each team working in a unique initiative.
- Putting focus on improving the quality of our processes and Continuous Delivery.
Furthermore, to visualise that the initiatives are properly working, we have created specific tracking Dashboards.
Notice that an important effect of this implementation is that the number of meetings has declined, which contributes to more productive time for the strategic activities.
Maximum synchronisation
Currently, it is also vital to keep a high synchronisation across all the company and dedicate the maximum amount of productive time to achieve the short-term objectives. Therefore, we have reduced or paused some group activities, such as meetings, and we have raised those that help us manage the current situation. On this line of work, we have decided to:
- Increase the synchronisation of cross topics through Dailys of the Product management teams and the Governance technologic team.
- Keep the Transformation Weeklys and the Team Coaches Chapter, where we share topics that need a mutual understanding. In the case it is necessary to work on details, we schedule separate meetings.
- Schedule checkpoints each week(in the middle of the Sprints), given the uncertainty of the first days, the complexity of the situation, the multiple changes and the need for a quick reprioritisation.
- Agree on a fluid communication. If there are 4 or 5 messages about a topic in Slack, our internal communication tool, we schedule a call to manage it faster.
All these initiatives were implemented in record time, given the highly changeable context, as, at Voxel Group, one of the values that define us is to love the challenges: Challenge Maniacs.
Telework, making it better and friendlier
At Voxel, the telework was already in place before the crisis. This helped us implement it easier while being in remote. In any case, we keep looking for ways to improve it during this first week, as it is forced for exceptional circumstances.
Therefore, we have introducedsmall retrospectives after each daily to obtain quick feedback and see how we can improve. Furthermore, we have created virtual rooms for each team to feel closer to our colleagues during the workday. And, idea of one of our employees, we have also created a virtual coffee room, to feel closer to our colleagues during the workday.
All of this, thanks to our Systems Department, which has supported us moving all the work remotely.
Investing in our future: people culture and consciousness
The confinement also allows us to keep working on the teams’ development and make a deeper introspection, focusing on the personal aspects.
Therefore, we took advantage of theDiSC analysis that we have recently done to each one of the team members and we put the focus on the 1 to 1 meetings.
These meetings will help us make specific team dynamics when we will return to the offices to improve the way we interact with each other.
So far, these have been the first steps that we have been working on at Voxel Group to face this unprecedented crisis. From here, we will keep working on new initiatives that will help us confronting this highly-changeable situation and we will share it with the rest of the community to surpass this huge challenge.
