Thanks to Skype\nfor Business<\/strong>, which we are running on-premise from our own high-security\ndata centers for reasons of compliance (the same applies to our Exchange\ninfrastructure), the telephone extension also always goes straight through to where\nthe laptop happens to be located. When the system was first introduced, I can\nvividly recall some of us cursing the fact that we could only make calls with a headset<\/strong>, but now we are all glad that we are\njust as easily reached at home as at our office desks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since\nMonday, the whole department has been meeting up every morning for a half hour video conference<\/strong>. Previously, this\nregular discussion took place only once a week as a face-to-face meeting and\nthe new arrangement seems to give us a whole new feeling of solidarity and team\nspirit. This is true to the extent that during our call on Friday Roland, the\nhead of our department, spontaneously expressed the view that he has actually never\nfelt as close to the team as he does now – of all times – during the physical\nseparation the coronavirus crisis has forced on us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roland also\ndeserves a word of thanks for ensuring that the iMacs used by our two part-time\ngraphic designers Tina and Heloise – not to forget our working student\nSebastian – were furnished with the necessary certificates and geared up for the\nhome office. He then took the computers round to their respective homes himself\n– also not to be taken for granted these days, especially considering that at\nthis time Roland also has to take care of his daughter more than before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not to mention\nall of the other kids<\/strong>: How the members of our team who had relatively\nrecently returned from parenting leave – Sabrina (mother of twins), Michelle and\nAnna – or Tina with her little one, as well as all the other colleagues with\nchildren of school age (who somehow have to bring home schooling, childcare and\nhome office proverbially and physically under one roof) are coping with the\ncurrent situation, is something I can hardly begin to imagine. My nerves are instead\nbeing severely tested by pneumatic hammers, compressors and a whole orchestra of\nnoisy construction machinery from two building sites in the immediate vicinity\nof my apartment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m\nnevertheless grateful that in the course of all this construction work, nobody\nhas accidentally severed my internet\nconnection<\/strong>. And I\u2019m really glad that I\u2019ve got a really speedy \u201csuper vectoring\u201d\nconnection so I don\u2019t have epic waiting times, for instance when I quickly have\nto upload five presentations to our official corporate SharePoint for our\nDirector of Strategy. The additional, larger\nmonitor<\/strong> on my desk, which I usually don\u2019t use at all, has proven to be an\nextremely useful and sensible purchase, especially from an ergonomic\nperspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The weak point\nin the furnishing of my home office, which I have already been able to identify\nafter the first week, is the lack of a proper desk chair<\/strong>. At the moment I\u2019m sitting on my Swopper. It\u2019s actually\ngreat for my back, in which I previously suffered a prolapse, but for a full\n8-hour working day it is almost too healthy! In general, I think that in the home\noffice one has to make an effort to regularly stand up and walk around a bit\nevery now and then. Starting Monday, our fitness trainer Nina is offering video\nworkout sessions for those having to work from home<\/strong>, so that we don\u2019t all\ntotally fossilize due to the corona crisis. I\u2019m looking forward with excitement\nand will try to join in as regularly as I can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My Monday\nstarts as always, except during the school holidays, with an hour of English training<\/strong>. Our teacher, Martin, had\nno technical difficulties switching over to using Skype for Business at short\nnotice. In last week\u2019s lesson we wasted no time in getting to grips with the\ntopic of COVID-19 and its potential impact on our economy and society, with the\naid of a recent article from the World Economic Forum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, the\ndiscovery of the week was definitely Slack. As we hadn\u2019t previously been using\na departmental team chat platform<\/strong>, I\nspontaneously set up a workspace for the Marketing department last Sunday. We have\nbeen using the tool to coordinate the tasks that require collaboration between\ncolleagues. And following a few relatively spontaneous campaigns over the past\nweek, I have to ask myself how we ever managed to get by without a collaboration\ntool like this. I\u2019m already rather sure that even after we have returned to our\nregular desks, we will continue to use Slack or something comparable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another fairly challenging task lies ahead this week. At the start of April a new colleague, Majkel, will be joining our campaign management team. We now have to consider the technical and organizational aspects of his onboarding<\/strong> process to ensure that he will feel as welcome and well-integrated in the team as he would hopefully have felt if we had not all been exiled to our home offices. In this, we are entering exciting and thus far totally uncharted terrain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The internal communication<\/strong> by our crisis team has been sincere and has taken place on a regular basis, which is great. Each employee knows where they stand and what they have to be mindful of – barring unknown or incalculable situations. And, it generally feels great to know that especially in such a crisis situation our company is showing the depth of its solidarity and pulling together for the benefit of our customers, to ensure that our messaging services continue to function at least as reliably as always during the coronavirus crisis. At least. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Monday last week, along with the rest of Retarus\u2019 Marketing team, I have been working from home (just like 95% of our company\u2019s staff). So far, everything is working out remarkably well \u2013 in no small part because Retarus, as an IT company, is exceptionally well prepared to meet the demands and challenges of this crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":4475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[388],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.retarus.com\/blog\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2020\/03\/nina.jpg\")
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