Our Response to the COVID-19 Outbreak
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect our communities, our world, and the way so many of us work, we wanted to share what we here at Idealist Consulting are doing in this time of transition and uncertainty.
At Idealist Consulting, we’re trying to focus on our existing skills and expertise, and what we can do to support our employees, our clients, and our community.
We’re being thoughtful about the ways we work and communicate. We’re offering maximum workplace flexibility for our consultants and employees. We are monitoring official recommendations from our local health authorities. We’re trying to be thoughtful in what we say, both internally as coworkers and externally as guides to our clients.
As always, we are dedicated to our roles as educators and guides. We want to support our clients and their missions even as their priorities and operations shift.
Many organizations around the world are already working remotely or planning to shift as much work as possible. As a cloud solution, Salesforce readily supports remote work, and Salesforce is running a webinar about meeting your mission during the COVID-19 outbreak on March 18.
Here are a few other considerations we suggest making:
- Take an inventory of in-person activities that can be accomplished through cloud-solutions like Salesforce. You may find this blog post about what makes great internal project managers successful helpful. Everyone should be on the same page about what can be done remotely and how those activities should be completed.
- Designate back-up decision makers and project managers.
- If your team works remotely, hold a weekly team meeting via video conference. Ask people to turn their cameras on — it helps people feel connected and promotes understanding between individuals.
- Document everything! Salesforce documentation is always important, but so is documenting business processes, meeting notes, and continuity plans. A cloud-based solution like Google Docs, Microsoft 365, or Quip (which is currently being offered to Salesforce customers for free) comes in handy here.
- Get into a habit of including conference call links in calendar invites.
- Be transparent with your team, as well as your clients or beneficiaries, about changes made to your operations or priorities.
- Review your segmentations of constituents, clients, donors, or partners in case you need to send an email.
- Be sure your business continuity plan is up-to-date and takes into consideration current conditions.
If you’re working with a consultant, consider reviewing your project plans so that you both remain on the same page. And email your client success representative at Idealist Consulting if you have questions about your project or how it fits into your priorities.
Have questions?
