It’s safe to say it has been one hell of a year. Incredibly challenging times for many and the strange whirl of rules and regulations, lockdowns and new normals, and yet December has rolled around as it does every year, so with trees twinkling and the shift down gear towards Christmas we’ve been thinking about what we’ve learnt over the past twelve months…
We are way more flexible than we thought
No, we didn’t take up yoga in 2020, one for the 2021 list perhaps but we did realise our team and business are a whole lot more flexible than we thought. We started the year like many other businesses with an office, seeing each other every day, team lunches and all of that which makes a workplace but when March rolled around that all stopped, and you know what; we’ve been fine. In fact, it’s been a bit of a revelation. Turns out we don’t need an office at all – in fact, we became ‘office-less’ in Summer 2020 and we have no immediate plans to go back to one. We can service all of our clients without having ever set foot in their offices, we can work together collaboratively and stay connected as a team through both the power of technology and through becoming truly agile in our thought and behaviours.
We can go off plan, and make it work
In early 2020 we had a product, not yet ready for market but being trialled by some clients. In March 2020 the ‘plan’ became the ‘now’ and we realised our clients needed this product to be up and running, fast. We launched Remote Workplace the same month to ensure that even clients with people in the most technical roles could access their software as though they were in the office – from any device. It was never our intention to get this product out to market so quickly but let’s just say 2020 had other ideas for everyone’s plans and we definitely learned with this one that we can respond fast to client needs and deliver as a business and a team when faced with a challenge.
We value our relationships more than ever
This is not to say we didn’t value our client and internal relationships before – because of course, we did, but we also recognise that 2020 has been challenging and quite frankly devastating for some industries and with that in mind we are hugely grateful that our business has remained robust with the support of valued clients, helping our clients to grow their business is at the very core of our own and so we end 2020 thankful to be in a position to do what we love – and as for the team here at Yobah, we are connected all be it over the miles, and have been fortunate to work through the challenge of 2020 together – and whilst we may have to have pizza over a Teams call at the moment we’re definitely looking forward to the moment it’s safe to meet again.