It's been a year: here’s what we've learned after a year in lockdown
Who could have guessed that, just one year ago, the way we work and live would change forever?
With the global COVID-19 pandemic seeing most companies shut down their offices and hole up at home, employees created home offices and got into the groove of interacting over Zoom. The way we work changed quickly overnight as virtual and remote work became (and has remained) the new normal.
No more in-person meetings, chats around the water cooler, or midday ping-pong sessions. Instead, we traded our offices in downtown Toronto for home offices spread out across the country—and the world. Early morning coffee runs became short walks to the Keurig, while after-work drinks with coworkers turned into virtual game nights and at-work yoga sessions became virtual health workshops.
After a year, our team has learned a lot about what it means to live, work, and play in lockdown. From learning how to set boundaries between work and life to prioritizing health and wellness (and exploring new hobbies along the way), we’ve all learned valuable lessons about ourselves and each other. Read on to discover those lessons from our talented teams!
Working from home is hard
With many struggling to find ways to separate work from life, the sudden switch to fully-remote work styles required a period of adjustment for some team members, while others had already faced the reality of remote work even before the pandemic.
This new norm has taught us that some of us thrive in remote work situations, and some of us crave the connectivity of office life. Staying connected through virtual calls and meetings, along with fun team activities and company-wide initiatives, has helped our team nurture camaraderie and open communication.
We’ve also learned that improved communication opens doors for people to form deeper, more meaningful connections between their work and their teammates.
Our Growth team says it best:
“Lockdown has been tough on all of us, but there have definitely been a lot of learnings in the past year. We’ve learned how to communicate more effectively. We’ve gotten great at keeping everyone on the same page and in the loop using Slack and Zoom. This effort has really elevated us as a team; everyone’s always willing to step up and help, and as a result, we’ve been able to openly share our learnings and achieve success. We’ve made sure to build processes (and continue to iterate on them) to keep each other accountable and provide support when needed. We also learned how important it was to have transparency when it comes to company and team goals and used that to help set up our personal goals to align with those and have everyone on the team support these goals.”
Health and wellbeing are the top priority
For many, working from home has meant rolling from the bed to the desk and living with a laptop attached to your hip. That lack of balance between work and life can have an impact on both mental and physical wellbeing, making it critical to prioritize health and wellness.
The pandemic only exacerbated this, and our team made it a priority to stay active, try new activities, and incorporate more health and wellness initiatives into our everyday lives—both personally and as a company.
As our Client Success team knows:
“It’s important to create separation from home and work. Do things like a virtual commute, and ensure you spend time moving around and getting some exercise along with fresh air!”
Along with carving out time in the day to get moving and grab some fresh air, our teams also made physical fitness key to their remote work success in and outside of the workday.
Our Product team shares some of their top advice:
“With no access to a gym, it’s important to be creative with your at-home workouts to prevent boredom. The fun fitness challenges we had at Sensibill have also helped a lot. Daily walks are also a fantastic way to get fresh air and separate your workday from the rest of your day!”
Work smarter, not harder (or longer)
Remote workout burnout is real—some studies have shown that, during the pandemic, burnout for workers across the US and Canada is at an all-time high, while others show the average workday is now an hour longer than it was pre-pandemic.
This means employees are working harder, longer hours that fuel burnout and stress brought on by remote work life and the pandemic. So, what’s the solution?
Work smarter, not harder (or longer).
For our Mobile team, working smarter means prioritizing how you set up your workday:
“Everyone has different ways of coping and working when they're at home. Find a working pattern that works for your team and stick to it. For example, our Mobile team holds all of our meetings from 9:30 in the morning and we rarely go past 11:00. The rest of the day is reserved for doing work. People have chats where and when they need to along the way, and we keep our team Slack channel for teamwide conversations.”
Working smarter also means recognizing when to stop and shut down work for the day versus working overtime or extra hours simply because we’re all working from home.
As our Backend team says: “Working harder and longer is not always working smarter. It takes discipline to have hard stops, disconnect, and recharge.”
And the most important lesson? Cutting yourself some slack. Our team has learned that no matter your level of comfort with working remotely or flexibly, everyone can have a bad day. Recognizing people’s hard work and contributions means also recognizing that we’re allowed to be off our game sometimes!
Our team has accomplished some pretty awesome stuff during the pandemic!
We’re proud of everything our team has accomplished in a year in lockdown—both at work and in our personal lives. Here’s a recap of just a few of the many awesome things our teammates have done and accomplished.
🏠 Four team members on our Mobile team moved house, and a few members are learning to master the game of Poker
🔐 Our Information Security team achieved SOC 2 attestation for our company, a huge and successful undertaking that involved lots of hard work!
🍝 Many team members have learned to cook new dishes and cuisines, with some teams taking virtual cooking classes (like our Marketing team, who learned how to make beetroot pasta from scratch)
🛩 A few of our teammates have moved to Canada from around the globe, including moving from Brazil and the UK
👋 We’ve introduced several new Sensibillians to our team, onboarding new team members in both 2020 and 2021!
🎸 Some Sensibillians have been learning to play different musical instruments, like the guitar
💡Our team announced our new Sensibill Platform, which includes two new products, and have grown our partnerships with financial institutions and technology companies
👶 Corey, our Co-founder and CEO, and his wife welcomed their second child in early 2021–a baby boy!
💻 Several of our Sensibill teammates used 2020 to learn something new, participating in courses, certificate programs, and online classes to upskill and build on their learning and development
📜 Our Marketing team learned origami and Ivy, our VP of Marketing, has been mastering calligraphy
Moving forward in 2021
The global COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot about how we live and work. But our biggest takeaways from a year spent in lockdown have been the valuable lessons we’ve learned and the growth we’ve experienced as a company and individually. We’ve accomplished so much in just one year amidst the challenges and changes brought on by the pandemic, and are incredibly proud of our teammates. We can’t wait to continue making waves in 2021.
