How are you and your customers doing with the pandemic changes in the workplace? Like all organizations, we’ve spent the past 20 months adjusting to more remote work and less in-person interaction, among other changes. With the situation still evolving, we thought we would take a moment to share some of our experiences, strategies and lessons learned. You’ll also find resources you can use to get the word out to customers and prospects on how to enable effective remote work. We hope the information is of value to you and your customers.

Our experience with remote work technology goes back more than two decades so that part of the shift wasn’t as challenging for us as the human impacts. When the work-from-home orders came down, our first goal was to make sure our employees were properly equipped to work from home full-time and our customer services went uninterrupted.

Our employees reported the switch went well. The same went for our customer services. Out technical support team continued to meet its benchmark of answering more than 98% of calls within 10 seconds and resolving more than 85% of client issues on the same day.

As it turned out, our expertise in technology wasn’t the lone driver of the successful transition. Our company culture played a major role. As Nathan Schwenke, our Director of Technical Support, observed afterward: “I think the biggest takeaway from all of this has been that we could not have done this without teamwork, which happens to be Digitech Systems’ Goals & Values No. 11. Everyone individually had to make drastic changes in their lives and at the same time they also committed to making remote work a success for our department and company,” he says. (Read more about how we maintained our excellent customer service in the article, “Answering the Call: Legendary Technical Support Uninterrupted by Pandemic.”)

“I think the biggest takeaway from all of this has been that we could not have done this without teamwork, which happens to be Digitech Systems’ Goals & Values No. 11.”

– Nathan Schwenke, Director of Technical Support

Our success during this period led us to adopt a permanent hybrid work policy. Today, most employees work in the office three days a week and work from home two days a week. In announcing the new schedule, Digitech Systems CEO HK Bain wrote to Associates: “As an Executive Team, we asked ourselves, how can we take advantage of what we have learned? How can we emerge from the past year and a half as a stronger, more flexible, and enlightened company? As you are aware, there is no shortage of opinions, challenges, or proposed models of how companies should react in the post-pandemic world. However, rather than react based on short-term data being bandied about by the pundits, we choose to look at the specific needs of our Associates and our company. We choose to look at our strengths and how to compliment them in anticipation of our future needs. In other words, we don’t want to react to a crisis. We want to learn from our experience and put our Associates and company in the best possible position going forward, in a manner that will sustain the test of time and is not a fad.”

Spreading the word

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the media and business community have turned to Digitech Systems to learn more about how to securely enable effective remote work. The marketing team went to work updating and expanding the library of information available to you and your customers. Here’s a partial list to help you boost your own remote work messaging:

• Essential Remote Work Tools landing page. Find resources on this special page of our website.
• “Work From Home: What We’ve Learned” article. Includes questions to ask yourself as you’re developing your own hybrid work policy.
• Remote Work and Collaboration blog post
• “Are Work-At-Home Employees Keeping Data Secure?” article
• Remote Work whitepaper. Help customers understand their needs at a deeper level.
• Critical Tech for Telework infographic
• Case study: Cooperative Educational Services. Find out how one ECM user saved countless jobs in New Mexico during the pandemic. (Case study video.)
• Customizable marketing content. Check out MyDSI for materials designed to include YOUR BRAND and contact information.

Reach out to your sales representative to learn more on how to position yourself for sales success.

Bridging the gap

So how do you maintain a strong company culture when everyone is working from home?

In our case, we followed several strategies. First, we sent each employee home with the best equipment. We followed up to address any setup issues. Second, managers stayed in constant telephone, email and video communication with their staff and each other. The conversations often focused on both business and everyone’s personal well-being. The onboarding of newly hired employees was aided by using our E-Forms and other ECM tools.

Members of the marketing team attend a staff meeting — on a foothills trail west of Denver.

As we settled into the rhythm of working from home, we ramped up efforts to keep employees engaged and morale high. In the marketing department, monthly outdoor staff meetings became popular. The meetings often featured a hike on a local trail or a lunchtime visit to a park.

The sales staff favored virtual lunches and virtual happy hours as a way to stay better connected. “For an extrovert like myself, it’s hard to replace in-person interaction. It was nice that we were able to do something to continue connecting to our team on a more personal level, so I really enjoyed our virtual happy hours and lunches,” client development specialist Tonya Petersen said. The sales department added a nice touch by sending food delivery gift cards in advance so staff could pick their favorite foods.

Our annual company picnic and annual holiday party are back as they were pre-pandemic.

“It was nice that we were able to do something to continue connecting to our team on a more personal level.”

– Tonya Petersen, Client Development Specialist

What do companies need to know going forward?

Resellers should “steer your business and your customers toward productivity tools like ECM and collaboration that make information exchange and communication simple – no matter where employees are located,” Christina Robbins, our Director of Strategic Communications, says in the article, “Work From Home: What We’ve Learned,” published in August in the industry publication Workflow.

In the article, Christina discusses three of the most important lessons learned about remote work, including 1) the importance of choosing the right remote work technology, 2) understanding the impact of remote work on hiring and 3) focusing on the significant cost-savings potential of remote and hybrid work.

“Keep in mind that the right remote work technology actually enhances productivity and security. If you choose to prohibit remote work, you’re going to find it harder to recruit and hire top talent. And, you can look forward to significant overhead savings as employees move to alternate work arrangements. Happier employees and lower overall cost? This trend will be good for business!” she says. Read more

Webinars

Conclusion

The impacts of an event like the COVID-19 pandemic are far-reaching. Our company has gained a better understanding of the value of communication, employee engagement, customer service and the hybrid work model. We also added to our expertise on the tools needed for effective remote work. We’re grateful our strong company culture served us well and enabled us to adapt. By relaying some of our experiences, we hope to help you and your customers with remote work strategies.

[1]Gallup (2021). Remote Work Persisting and Trending Permanent. Retrieved from: Remote Work Persisting and Trending Permanent (gallup.com)

Digitech Systems Sales and Marketing