| Last month, I mentioned that Red Wing Software transitioned to a work-from-home business model when over a year ago, the Minnesota Governor mandated, “If you can work from home, you must work from home.” Our transition was relatively seamless thanks to our experience of already having several team members working from home for several years and Larry, our amazing IT Manager. |
| We’ve been able to do a pretty good job of maintaining communications, but there still seemed to be something missing. The networking and “water cooler” talk was more difficult to replace with phone calls and electronic chats. For a relatively small company with a family atmosphere, that networking is important. |
| Connie, our Technical Writer, came up with a great idea to help re-establish some of this more casual networking. We have regularly scheduled internal team meetings each week that a few people normally attend. Now, before some of these meetings, usually three times per week, we have a ten-minute “virtual coffee break,” where anyone can join a video conference and catch up with others on what’s going on outside the office. Then, when the meeting is ready to start, they are welcome to stay on and participate in the meeting or log off and continue their regular duties. |
| We’ve only been doing this for a few short weeks, but it seems to be accomplishing our goal. It’s great to have staff members proactively come up with ideas to make Red Wing Software a better company. |