The year has truly been a learning experience for Mindset and our customers. We have seen some clients breeze through the transition to the new world of working remotely with little to no delays and we have seen some having a slightly different experience.
As we close the month of August, the vast majority of our clients are 100% remote (whether they want to be or not) and overall, our clients have been able to continue work as normal. Being on the outside of these organizations and talking to so many different companies, I have the privilege to see/hear a wide range of different operating rhythms, systems, team structures, and tools being used to help.
Over the last 6 months or so, I repeatedly have been asked the same handful of questions:
- Is remote work working for your clients?
- What struggles have you seen your clients have with the change?
- Have other companies canceled or paused projects?
- Overall, what is Mindset seeing right now?
Here is what I have been sharing:
1. Is remote work working for your clients?
Yes! The majority of Mindset’s clients experienced a slowdown in April when the massive shift started. Currently, most of our clients are back to the output levels we saw before COVID and a few have even become more efficient!
2. What common struggles have you seen with your clients?
The biggest challenges I have seen relate to group engagement and virtual collaboration. Large Zoom/Teams/Skype strategy calls do not always work well as there is too much cross-talk, some people are not engaged, and others tend to overpower the conversation.
One suggestion we have seen work really well is to break the large meetings into small groups and rotate who is in each group. Mindset uses Mural frequently and we recommend it (https://mural.co/)!
3. Have other companies canceled or paused projects?
To put this simply, yes. We saw several companies put the brakes on many projects right away. We did not see many projects get canceled if they were already started, but the upcoming projects were pushed out. Since the end of June, we have slowly seen our client’s projects resume.
4. Overall, what is Mindset seeing right now?
The projects are back on! We have been seeing a significant uptick in Design Thinking remote workshops and assessments for large implementations and upgrades. Another observation that we have made is that our implementation and custom development teams have been extremely busy, organizations are using the same or more resources but in different ways, with less-permanent placement, but very high demand for project teams.
Overall, we are excited to say that the majority of our clients have successfully transitioned into the world of working from home, the projects are ramping back up, and we have even spoken with companies that will not be returning to the office in the future unless the employee wants to! If anyone is looking for tips on optimizing a remote team, increasing collaboration, or just wants to know more, let me know!
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