While the work we do is very serious at any time – and even more so in the middle of a worldwide pandemic – our continuing success is also down to the hard work of a large team of individuals who each have enormous energy and a zest for life.
While working from home is something many of the team does at some time or another, the fact that everyone is now operating from their place of residence is obviously out of the ordinary.
It’s extremely impressive that there has been no drop in productivity whatsoever – everyone is giving 100% to ensure the business runs as normally as possible…even if some may be doing so in pyjamas from a coffee table in their living room!
Keeping team spirit high
But not being able to share ‘water cooler’ conversations or friendly banter in the office, or simply be able to have a change of scene from one day to the next, does present challenges, especially when there is no obvious point when things will return to normal.
The need to keep the energy flowing and create connectivity between our colleagues is paramount, which is why we’ve set up a number of ways for our global team to share experiences and try to have some fun.
Each day there’s a virtual tea break at 3pm, where any of the team can log on and have a chat over a cuppa. Everyone is encouraged to enable their cameras so the chat is face-to-face and there’s a visual challenge for people to be creative with their backgrounds – which is why we’ve seen people apparently in outer space, in front of tourist landmarks and even underwater!
As well as the daily catch-up, there’s an end-of-the-week Friday hangout, where teams can unwind together over a glass of something cold and reflect on the week.
10th Anniversary
Last week was extra special: the 1st April marked the PortfolioMetrix 10-year anniversary and 49 of the team logged onto a four-hour virtual celebration to share memories, laughs and one or two drinks. It was a great success and enormous fun, with everyone behaving just like we were all together and not spread across 49 different locations.
Communication with adviser partners
Of course, front of mind for us all is keeping the business operating in as normal a way as possible. Communication with our partners is as important as with our colleagues and recently we have:
- run global and national webinars on Composure. We had over 200 attendees from our adviser partners and have also shared the information with prospect firms as well
- increased our regular business updates
- developed a constantly updated FAQ resource
- assisted a number of our partners to set up new systems in their home offices
With everyone having to deal with individual challenges around family well-being, home-schooling and social isolation it’s absolutely vital we work as flexibly as possible. I am extremely proud of how well everyone in PortfolioMetrix is rising to the challenges, keeping focused and, above all, being positive about the future.
Good health to all.
