Flexibility is Our Motto: How Team One Has Adapted to the New Normal

Lynne Laniez, Talent Director at Team One

Team One
Полный комплекс услуг
Los Angeles, United States
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What are you telling your staff about the crisis? How have you been communicating the plans for work during and for after the pandemic?

Since day one, we have reiterated that our employees come first, then our clients and then our business as a whole. Our primary focus is our employees safety and comfort during this pandemic. Flexibility has been our motto and making sure that people stay and feel connected has been extremely important as well. From creating a weekly email with resources for our employees, to the Zoom happy hours, we have been consistent staying connected at a distance.

 

Have you been able to adapt your office culture over to remote work? How are you keeping employees connected?

One thing that many of our employees missed was the hallway conversations we all took for granted. We knew that adapting and changing was inevitable so we acknowledged those feelings and figured out a way to continue to connect with our teams.  Our teams have remained connected through Skype, Teams, Zoom via happy hours, check-ins, and simple “hello’s.”

 

Looking outside of your offices, does Team One give back to local communities? What are some initiatives?

Yes, as we were all adjusting to working from home at the beginning, we wanted to make sure that we were making an effort to support those who were directly impacted by the Coronavirus closures, which were the local restaurants and the students who depend on school meals. During the World Health Worker week, we encouraged our employees to Pay if Forward versus getting it paid pack. This meant that any team member that submitted an “Expense for Good,” would be making a difference by having that amount donated to a local food bank in LA, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago or NYC. 

 

How are you helping your clients during this period? What has been the impact on the work?

Although COVID-19 has certainly impacted various facets of our industry, Team One has navigated through these difficult times in order to produce great work for our clients. We’ve kept our production pipeline busy as we’ve adapted to our current environment. We’re moving quickly and understand that our client’s primary focus is on their customers. Our production departments, which include VFX, CG and AR specialists, moved portable equipment to their homes in the days leading up to the sheltering mandates, while incorporating other cloud-based programs. Although we’re all engaging from different locations, mixed mediums are the future and virtualizing production is the way forward.

 

What is the #T1athome Portrait Series and what was the inspiration behind this initiative? How is the Portrait Series helping the team stay connected?

 The #T1athome portrait series is a creative social project we established a few weeks into the COVID stay at home order, with the aim to shine some light on and share the faces of our employees working from home. Each portrait captures a Team One employee in and around their homes, alongside their furry and familial co-workers living and working together in this historical moment in time.

 

When we come out of this crisis, our society will be changed. How are you preparing your employees for the new normal? Are there any Covid work policies that will possibly be adopted permanently?

  1. Increased flexibility with staff who would like to add in a work-from-home component to their schedule. We will potentially be looking at how employees thrive during their work week and make adjustments as we learn more from the local government stay-at-home orders.
  2. Increased agency support of business resource groups, with the goal of moving real change forward. This includes Viva Women of Color, Men of Color Alliance, Egalite, Publicis Parents, Viva Women of Tech, etc.
  3. Focus on health and wellness of all staff and streamlined channels to provide resources.
  4. Increased focus on commuting policies and how we can help mitigate employee stress with new policies.