A Remote Team Strengthening In-Person Relationships

When the pandemic hit last year, our team was ready because we were well versed in working remotely.  Our 18 member staff is spread out over seven states and three time zones.  We have been using the full complement of remote working tools including Acumatica for our financials, client management, case log, and implementation project management.    We are in constant communication with each other using strategic standing Microsoft Teams meetings for each department, ad hoc Teams calls as well as a weekly “All Staff” zoom meeting on Wednesday afternoons to make sure the cross-departmental information flow is working.  We share important corporate documents on our Sharepoint site to increase collaboration.

I can say with full confidence that Strategies Group lives, eats, and breathes the remote technology-dependent business life that we sell.   Since the beginning of the pandemic in February 2020, our team has remotely implemented twenty-six new Acumatica systems and other ancillary productivity tools.  Our customers are now learning the importance of flexibility in a world of uncertainty.

However, being able to run our business remotely does not remove the desire and need for team unity built on a more personal basis.  To that end, Strategies Group spent two days last week in Downtown Duluth, GA creating stronger team bonds and investing in training on our processes. During this onsite training, I was also finally able to meet five new employees who were hired during the last fifteen months without an in-person interview.  We were able to hire, onboard, and train these new team members because of the remote capabilities we incorporated into our business.   It was an incredible time that will undoubtedly make our team’s communication and cooperation better which will, in turn, improve our ability to serve our clients well.

While we did some dedicated team bonding time, we also dug deep into our core values, (Compassion, Communication, Cooperation, Cleverness and Colossians 3:23 style Accountability).  We reinforced the teams’ understanding of our implementation, training, and support processes and spent time getting feedback on how we could do things even better from the most important people in the room (our team).   Dedicated staff training is NEVER convenient, seldom cheap but always rewarding.  After spending this time with our team, I can honestly say that the future is very bright at Strategies Group and our clients are in very good hands.