This time of year is normally filled with the simple joys of spring and busy preparations for our annual events. Of course, this year is anything but normal. Instead of our annual Opening Day party (Go Rockies!) and ICSC planning, we’re honing our video conferencing skills and debating the best way to support local businesses while practicing social distancing.
With offices in three of the hardest-hit states, we have a first-hand view at how COVID-19 can impact a community, and we quickly learned that the situation changes not day-by-day, but hour-by-hour. Our priority is protecting our team and our communities, to flatten the curve and do what we can to keep each other safe. Fortunately, those two go hand-in-hand; by supporting our team in their efforts to work from home, we also support their efforts to practice social distancing, which benefits the community at large.
We are fortunate that our industry allows us to work remotely and ensure that we aren’t letting the balls drop. Because we already meet remotely with our regional offices, we have the advantage of already being set up with the technology we need. Tools like Slack, Zoom and cloud servers allow us to stay connected with each other, our clients and our partners, so we can keep our projects moving forward and respond to the changing situation as a unified team.
It would be easy to assume that everyone has a home office, high-speed internet and the other tools necessary to make working from home feasible, but even in 2020, not everyone does. We’ve made it a priority to ensure that everyone on our team is fully supported in getting those tools in place, and that they don’t suffer any financial hardship to do so.
We know that there are many in our communities that do not have the option of working from home, but we hope that our efforts help keep them safe, as well. By flattening the curve now, we are not only protecting the health of our communities, we hope to be protecting the health of our economy in the future. It’s too soon to predict when this situation will be controlled, and what the economy will look like when that happens, but for now, we’ll continue to do what we can, and prepare and adapt for what the future holds.
