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How isolation made us better recruiters, better colleagues, better people. How it made us become the best version of ourselves.
12 weeks ago, we cleaned out our offices and moved into WFH mode. Within a few weeks we had settled into our new norm. Zoom team meetings twice a day, in fact all meetings on Zoom. Kids on Zoom, Dogs on Zoom. We created habits of setting daily, individual goals. We formed team task lists, project lists and hosted weekly training discussions.
This week we returned to the office for a strategic planning session. The office was ghostly quiet and the mood sombre, yet hopeful and extremely positive. We were the same, but we were different. Shaped by the tragedy of the last few months.
The biggest difference which stood out so obviously in every single member of our team was the increased air of confidence
Yes, we had survived, our families had survived, and the business had performed well (in today’s terms). But where did that increased air of confidence come from and what were the observations of everyone else in the team from the last 12 weeks? In an in attempt to find out, I sent off a quick email with 4 questions.
What is your own individual success story?
- Being able to do two roles merged into one simultaneously. I must admit I was a little concerned on how I would manage but I seem to have found a way to make it work
- Keeping the business profitable over the past 3 months
- Finding the strength to pull through
- Placing temp and perm roles is always a highlight but the success of helping others externally and internally from a conversation of hope, helping with a resume or a laugh over Zoom was my real success story
- Just making it through with the laughter and the tears
- That I work within a supportive team and company
What is the biggest lesson you learnt?
- That working from home can work
- Even in a downturn/ pandemic, there are still opportunities to help clients and candidates – you just need to put in the hard work.
- Asking for help isn’t a bad thing
- Changing focus quickly from long term to short term in this landscape
- The things that you take for granted are precious – the value of an seeing everyone in the office and even just waking up and getting dressed for work in the mornings
What are you most proud of?
- VERITAS - so proud of this business and the people in it - determination, encouragement, perseverance and understanding - just a few words are what comes to mind to describe what I’m proud of Veritas achieving
- Our team and how well they’ve worked together to support each other and the business
- Proud of how I adapted to working from home and stayed organised without someone holding my hand in the office
- We still managed to bring on new clients and fulfil existing client requirements
- Definitely most proud of the team we have, everyone is so supportive and always there at any time, I have never worked in an environment like it. I am proud of our leaders who have done incredible things for their business and their team, both are people I look up to
What is the one memorable thing that we as a team have done very well together.
- Supported each other. We showed up every day
- Being able to support each other virtually. As a team we have done so well sticking by each other and ensuring that we are checking in and recognizing people having good days and not so good days and talking about those ‘not so good days’
- Making placements and maintaining relationships during this period – keeping afloat
- Calling team mates just to ask if they’re okay. I think it made everyone become selfless and care for the well-being of our teammates
- Talking about life and work, sharing stories and pulling together as one
- All the tears, losses, gains, laughter, team talks over zoom and how connected everyone has been is something that no matter where we all go in life, I will always carry with me. Always thankful and proud of the Veritas Family
We grouped together very well as a team and found a flow in working from home and whilst I am acutely aware it hasn’t been easy for a lot of teams, we found it accelerated our culture as well as us as individuals.
That air of confidence has come from support, acceptance, openness, resilience, determination, encouragement and overcoming the odds from a global, personal and team perspective. It comes from the knowledge that you have people around you that are there through the good and bad times.
I am extremely proud of our success over the last few months. We have remained focused, worked long hours, hard hours. We supported each other and not for one minute was there a tools down approach.
We really did share stories, we pulled together as one and we became the best version of ourselves.New Paragraph
Congratulations Team V. Thank you.
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