23 Mar 2020

COVID-19 Remote Working – It’s business as usual at Integrella

At Integrella it’s business as usual right now – albeit with a team spread across the globe. So we thought we’d give you a rundown of how we do this and what tools we use – as many will be scrambling to set up their remote working infrastructure.

We usually work from our London office, with some homeworking days, and co-ordinate a team based across the world in countries including India, Turkey and Eastern Europe.

We have important projects running with clients in the NHS and banking industry among others, as well as pitching new projects, and it’s important to continue progressing.

Meetings

We use Microsoft Teams as our core collaboration tool for meetings leveraging the video and audio capabilities and the linkage with the wider Office 365 suite. We also have at our disposal use of Google collaboration tools as well as Zoom.

These tools allow 2 or more people to meet, and it’s a great way to see and hear everyone, as well as share screens and present.

 

The Owl

If two or more people are in one location and meet with others, we have this nifty gadget from Owl Labs. The Meeting Owl smart video conferencing camera captures 360° video and audio for a near face-to-face experience. It’s a great way to pan around the room and see everyone. The owl focuses on the person moving or speaking and it gives a good ‘real meeting’ effect. However it’s probably a while until we can be in a room together. Hopefully soon.

The weekly flow

We have weekly management meetings, all-hands meetings, and meetings between managers and their reports. These are all scheduled well in advance, and everyone is expected to turn up at their allotted time. All calendar invites include the Google or Zoom meeting links which should be used.

Project management

We use Trello to track actions and projects, and as a tool to report back every week. We create a Trello board for every meeting, and people are allocated their actions in every board.

Time Management

All team members track and submit time sheets through Harvest. This helps us to allocate team members’ time to projects, and to reimburse contractors.

Phones

Our central office number is diverted to members of our support team, and staff also take turns to take calls or messages for the team. Messages are passed on immediately to colleagues, or support requests are acted on as usual.

Emails and calendars

We use Google email, calendars and Google docs for all the usual business functions, and we use Google Hangouts to schedule impromptu meetings, especially if it’s just one to one with a colleague.

CRM

Our contacts database and records of all interactions with our customers is on Salesforce. We note all contact details and keep records of all interactions so that anyone can access the latest on what we’re discussing with customers and prospects.

Finances

All our expenses are logged and reconciled in Xero, to be reconciled monthly. Xero is a cloud platform and therefore the current situation has had zero impact on our ability to manage and run the Finance department, meaning all core internal processes as well as client interactions remain running smoothly.

Flexibility

Some of us on the team have members of family and children at home, and we try to support each other where possible to be flexible in our working hours. For example we give colleagues the space to work in the evening if they’ve had to take time in the afternoon to play with children, or something similar. We all have to pull together right now to make things work.

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We’ve had this system in place for well over a year now, and it keeps our company running smoothly. We’re very pleased it is bedded in now, because we’re able to continue running the business without a hitch.

If you’d like a bit of advice – just submit your contact details into the form and we’ll get back to you. Good luck!

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