We’re a small company. We have, on a good day, 20 team members – some full-time, some part-time. Like most companies emerging from the pandemic, we have had to sit down and think about what happens next.
Unlike some companies, we can do that knowing our entire team is fully vaccinated.
It’s worth pointing out that, partway through the pandemic, we committed to keeping our employees safe by moving to a permanent home-centred office model. In a post-Covid working environment, nothing changes on that end. We remain committed to conducting our business via home-centred offices and remote work.
We’re really comfortable working with each other remotely because we’ve focused on the intangible elements of welcoming people and making them feel at home virtually. We’ve gotten pretty good at interacting with our contacts and customers that way, too.
That isn’t to say that we won’t take the chance to get together, now that things have opened up more. As we plan for our first in-person get-together as a team – this will likely take the form of a picnic in the park, or a hike together – we also think about what in-person meetings with clients and business partners will look like. We don’t think our teammates should have to decide if masking is appropriate in a meeting or not. That’s awkward and can be hard to manage if a participant is opposed to masking.
We’d love to meet face to face, if warranted. We know there is value in physically connecting with people.
We’d love to meet face to face, if warranted. We know there is value in physically connecting with people. It’s one of the benefits of being with the Accelerator Centre – it offers some physical space where we can experiment with bringing people together. We want/need to experiment with the use of shared space to help us plan for the longer-term future of the company.
Here’s what we’ve come up with, in terms of a company policy around in-person meetings – three simple ways to keep ourselves and others safe:
1. Boxbrite staff will attend in-person meetings without masks if:
- all those in attendance are double vaccinated, and
- all those in attendance are comfortable without masks.
2. If a participant from another company prefers not to disclose whether they’re fully vaccinated, all Boxbrite employees in attendance will wear their mask.
3. Our Boxbrite team members always have the choice to attend any meeting remotely.
It doesn’t take much to keep others safe from this highly transmissible virus. Every member of our team is fully vaccinated, and knows the company policy for in-person meetings. We cannot be responsible for others’ behaviour and choices; we can only be responsible for our own.
And we take that responsibility pretty seriously.