The outbreak of COVID-19 has required companies to adapt quickly to the operational and logistical demands necessitated by a distributed workforce, but based on its swift reaction, wealth management platform Personal Capital was up to the challenge.
“We were one hundred percent remote for all 435 of our employees within one day,” Andi Rohach-Uhle, administrative operations manager, said.
According to Rohach-Uhle, a handful of internal teams have helped keep operations moving smoothly at the Denver-based fintech company — from IT ensuring that employees have the proper work-from-home equipment and HR sharing wellness resources, to a dedicated crisis management team delivering important updates to colleagues.
The takeaway: A wide swath of internal stakeholders play a key role in making the immediate pivots necessary for navigating an unpredictable future.
Tell us briefly about your team's contingency plan pre-COVID-19. What did it plan for?
We have a crisis management team that meets throughout the year to evaluate the potential for natural disasters, emergency plans and strategies and any other unexpected scenario that could impact our offices, teams and personnel.
The team runs through mock scenarios with leaders in each of our offices. Open discussions lead to an evolving plan to ensure that we are as prepared as possible for any disruption to our business and the safety of our employees.
How has that contingency plan helped you respond in the face of the recent coronavirus outbreak?
We always prioritize our employees’ lives, families and health first. With that in mind, our leadership team was early to adopt the option to work remotely and then moved to closing our offices. We were one hundred percent remote for all 435 of our employees within one day. Our crisis management and IT teams worked together to ensure all employees had a laptop and any equipment needed to telework in a secure environment to protect our company, clients and users.
We have made a point of doing the best we can to keep employees informed and supported during this time, and both our crisis management and leadership teams provide the company with weekly updates.
Our leadership team was early to adopt the option to work remotely.”
What's the most important lesson you've learned about contingency planning from recent events, and how do you plan to apply that lesson in the future?
Our HR teams have put together some incredible resources regarding working from home, ideas for families that have kids at home, positive news sources and resources for mental and physical wellbeing.
Moving forward, we will take with us the importance of staying connected. We’ve embraced virtual meetings, hangouts and happy hours. From conference-call bingo to employee-led cooking tutorials, our teams have come together and found new ways of engaging with one another. Connecting and supporting our employees has always been important; now, more than ever, it’s a huge priority for everyone in any role.
