In mid-March, everything about our world changed. In just a few weeks, we’ve had to navigate what living through a pandemic means to us, our businesses, our families, and our communities. COVID-19 has dictated that we change how we work while maintaining our commitment to our customers, our staff, and our business objectives.
At Rebel.com, we are fortunate to have a business that is purely digital, providing solutions to entrepreneurs and small businesses who are looking to get online. Right now, this kind of work is more important than ever. Here’s how we’ve adjusted the way we work to ensure we can help people get access to the website design and hosting solutions they need to navigate our changed reality.
Rebel working from home
We’ve been able to transition to remote work with relative ease. We’ve had remote workers around the world for the past decade and have been set up to support them. All of our digital infrastructure exists in the cloud and we have a team of internet experts - it’s what we do, after all. Since we felt confident in the technology and logistical operations of working from home, we focused on our staff.
This is a major transition and life-changing event for everyone who came into an office as their weekly routine, and Rebel certainly wasn’t different. We built a fantastic culture around our space - we had meals as a team, we shared our space for community events, and we had many team rituals. Our space is an important extension of our culture, but it doesn’t define it. We’re still the same company.
Keeping our rituals: We’ve kept all our meetings that we hold sacred. Daily check-ins, demos, retros, and our staff-wide stand-up are still happening. Our CEO’s quarterly update was a recorded video. They’re virtual but not any less important.
As time goes by, we get progressively better at the video meetings as we struggle through the awkward silences and home-school interruptions. Now that we have gotten more familiar with the routine of working from home, we even have new virtual rituals: happy hour, trivia night, art night, and more.
The (new) home office: If you don’t have the luxury of a home office - as most of us don’t - the two pieces of advice I would give is:
- Put in the effort to create a comfortable workspace; and,
- Keep up the basics.
(If you haven’t read it, check out Miranda’s Self-Care Guide for Creatives on the Rebel Blog.)
As we settled into our extended new reality, we provided support for staff who needed to outfit their homes with furniture to make a healthy work environment (sitting on the couch all day sounds fun - until you try it).
Our customers
Despite a life turned upside down, we’re still committed to our customers - whether they’re new entrepreneurs or business veterans figuring out how to adjust to new circumstances. We are proud to provide all the online tools one needs to run a business, from web hosting to email. We also help by offering affordable website design and performance tune-ups for websites that might be a little sluggish.
We continue to be committed to having a positive impact on our community through alternative means, including our #CommunityMatters initiative. This is an online resource with tips, advice, and low-cost promotions to help our customers adjust to new realities. And if you’re launching something new to create a positive impact in your community, we’ll give you the tools you need at no cost through our Changemaker program.
Our circumstances might change, but our commitment to the community is steadfast. Until it's safe to reopen our downtown Ottawa office space and welcome the community in, we'll continue to find innovative ways to give back.
