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O P I N I O N
It’s natural to want to go back to normal – but remember that employees are your firm’s most important asset, and their needs are critical to your continued success. Choosing a culture of flexibility
T he pandemic has irrevocably changed how we as an industry operate, and firms are now faced with a decision as to when they’ll implement that fabled “return to normal.” But after so many months successfully remote, the question of how and why a firm goes back to the office becomes just as pressing as when. How do we establish a plan that makes everyone happy? What does normal look like now? And why did leadership reach a particular decision? At BL Companies, these questions have been at the forefront of our minds throughout the pandemic. After many months of deliberation, employee surveys, and constant communication we came to the clear and obvious answer, that what our employees value over everything else was the freedom to choose.
Julia DeFrances
BL’s decision to go remote was reached swiftly after several weeks of increasing safety measures. Even though the transition to remote work went smoothly, it was clear that constant and early communication pathways needed to be established both for the continued success of our business and for the well-being of our employees. We instituted a weekly firm-wide meeting with the CEO, where updates could be provided on the state of our business, the health and economic crises at large, and what the future held for our
firm. But more than that, it was an opportunity for leadership to be a steady presence in the lives of our employees when so much was in flux. After a few weeks of remote work, we also held a firm- wide development workshop focused on building a framework to deal with an organizational crisis such as the pandemic. The workshop was a great way to help our employees address their feelings about the abrupt change to our business, while
See JULIA DEFRANCES, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER SEPTEMBER 27, 2021, ISSUE 1410
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