This is what we've learned with Covid19
The year 2020 has been crazy. I could find a better word to describe it, but let me put it this way: It basically started with a global pandemic and, as of end of July, we’re practically still in the same situation. That’s crazy. We’ve learned a lot so far but, interestingly enough, not really about the virus itself, but more about our organisations, remote work, home offices, economic consequences, work-life balance and what really matters to us, as humans.
We were not prepared for this. As individuals and as companies. It would be complacent to say that we were. Nonetheless, after all this time, I’m very proud of the way our teams at velv and Onrising responded to this issue, across all areas, from legal to hr, marketing to development, finance to sales, from project teams to top management. We were one of the first companies that went “home-office mode” in Portugal. At least that we are aware of, as we learned in the news and from friends and colleagues. The decision was not easy, but at the same time it was fast and put in place in 1 day. Working from home was a normal thing for us, so in terms of infrastructure and communication we didn’t have to change anything. A couple of things changed, like how meetings are organised, how more straight to the point we have to be to address certain topics, or how our “get togethers” became online. We anticipated the consequences quite well, and work on them non-stop. We were actually able to grow our teams, and embrace some new exciting projects during this crazy period!
Thankfully, the culture at velv is extremely adaptive and, more importantly, helpful. Helpful in a sense that we understand each other’s difficulties and help on one another, almost intrinsically. We often see this in our teams, but during the last months, it got accentuated because of obvious reasons. I can’t thank enough this incredible team we’re part of, and a special thanks to our development teams, working non-stop and doing miracles in our projects, exceeding expectations when times are tough. This surely won’t be forgotten.
Again, I’m proud of what we were able to accomplish until now, and we’re going to continue to offer an amazing nearshore service to our clients and partners, in a completely unique way, that differs us from others. We grow while we learn, and this is a period where we sit down and listen, research and improve. Only this way we are able to deliver excellent quality in our products and services because, for crazy times: well thought out measures.