Covid one year on: How we didn’t let the pandemic wreck our company culture
It’s crazy to think that this time last year we still had no real idea of how the COVID pandemic was going to affect us all.
Back in February 2020, we as a company started to think about what we should be doing to prepare ourselves if London went into lockdown. Little did we know then, that 12 months later, we would still be in the throes of this awful worldwide pandemic.
We did what most people and companies were doing and that was taking each day as it came. The most important thing for us as a company was to keep everyone at Zaizi, and their families, safe.
How we are facing the pandemic together
Twelve months is a long time. We have mostly all gotten used to our new regimes; working from home full time, video calling, home schooling, not seeing our loved ones.
In terms of work, we’ve adapted really well and have had a pretty successful year despite the disruption — in fact, one of our best years yet.
But we haven’t forgotten that these are still really tough times for many people. And everyone has their own challenges to deal with outside of work, at home and in their daily lives, pandemic or not.
We have maintained our company culture by trying to go that extra mile and get everyone involved in lots of different ways. We have consistently kept the wellbeing of our employees at the top of the agenda.
Keeping the momentum
Of course, we review how things are going; tweaking and honing our approach to see how we can make things better and easier.
One area we’ve focussed on more this year is how to get everyone at Zaizi — and their families — to just down tools and take it easy. Most weeks we have an activity that breaks up the norm and injects a bit of fun. We hire experts to help us run some of these events. Just in the last few weeks, we’ve had:
- baking classes
- yoga and guided meditation classes
- games and quizzes
- a magician and mentalist
At Zaizi, we’ve always prided ourselves on our culture. And it’s something we’ve tried even harder to nurture whilst we’ve been working remotely. We know there’s always room for improvement; we’re not perfect, but we’re trying.
