All business lines experienced the impacts of outbreak of COVID-19, which is declared to be a pandemic by the World Health Organization. As İnomera, we moved to a working from home model in this period to protect teammates' and public health, quickly due to the advantage of being a technological company.
We managed to provide uninterrupted services due to our strong IT infrastructure that allows for our teams to stay connected and work online all the time.
How Did We Adapt to Working From Home Model?
Working from home or remote working has been a business model that we discussed and analyzed yet couldn't launch before. The quick increase in the rate of pandemic related risks led us to make very quick and previously untested decisions. All of our teams, particularly the HR department has become organized and we started working from home.
Even if we didn't practice before, the web-based technologies, SaaS type of software and an entirely cloud-based infrastructure provided us huge advantage in terms of adaptation to working from home. We successfully managed our digitalization while providing services to leading brands for digital transformation.
In this process;
- Zoom/Discord for video conferences that are essential to working together as if you're in an office,
- Google Apps for real-time and shared document editing,
- and Jira for managing software projects and teams.
we started using.
On the other hand, this quick transformation had significant differences than the others. Our teammates were also against a significant risk of health. Beyond working from home, they almost never got out of their homes. Thus, we prioritized the health and motivation of our teammates during our decision for managing this process. We had frequent and open/transparent communication with our teams while doing so.
Motivation for working from home
We took some steps for maintaining morale and motivation of all our teammates in this extraordinary case.
First of all, we prepared and shared a digital guide that includes the measures and suggestions related to working from home to boost the atmosphere of communication and trust.
Maintaining daily working routine was a vital issue for personal efficiency and motivation. Our teams started making all their daily routine works (team meetings, stand-up, code review etc.) in the digital environment via voluntary video conferences.
Likewise, we also moved our communication with customers to the online environment through their support. During weekly management meetings, we evaluated what happened throughout the week and what measures can be taken together with all teams.
We realized very quickly that our daily routine is not only about working. Our workplace used to provide us with breaks and socialization opportunities. We meet our teammates during online breaks and activities and refresh our motivation so that working from home doesn't weaken this bond. Team managers pay close attention to their teams and as a company, we feel that we're close even if we're physically not. We also hold our meeting series "Ne İstersen Sor" (Ask Anything), which is a part of our company culture and allows for our teams to easily ask any company manager about anything they are interested in, online. Here we both evaluate the agenda and answer the questions with our teams.
Also, our HR department has one to one conversations with all our teammates and monitors their health status and motivation, and attempts to protect our bond from weakening by sending small gifts to everyone.
Staying connected to business partners
As İnomera, we provide services in retail and telecommunication industries, which are primarily critical in Coronavirus period.
We sent a general notification quickly via e-mail and all digital channels to our business partners as soon as we move to the working from home model, recognizing the responsibility of providing services in critical industries. We restored trust with our business partners through one to one communication that their business processes won't be disrupted.
Having digitalized the infrastructures of giant Telecommunication companies in Turkey, our Telecommunication team continued its support for Telecommunication giants who undertook a completely critical role in this period. On the other hand, our support units maintain their regular support for brands for which we established an e-commerce infrastructure.
Extending our working from home period
For now, we extend our working from home period via weekly or bi-weekly evaluations. Frequent evaluations provide us with the opportunity of checking the operation and taking measures. We'll get back to the physical working environment once we overcome the coronavirus pandemic.
However, this period of collective digital experience turns out to be a special one for many business lines, and I think that working from home or remote working models will become widespread in future. The tendency for remote working would continue gaining momentum for more businesses if the analyses to be made after this period reveals the efficiency of working from home model. Therefore, it's of vital importance for organizations to continue their digital transformation by speeding up their process so that they can adjust to changing business life after the pandemic.
