News
#Better Together – also when working from home
Jos Nijhuis, General Manager, Q-Free Netherlands
“Our team in The Netherlands works extremely close together, and the informal communication that happens at the office is crucial to us. It works well to work remotely, but our challange is to foster the same degree of creativity working from home, as we do sitting side by side in the office. Our main focus is therefor on transferring the open environment, where everyone collaborates and shares ideas, into the digital world.”
Are Hegdahl, Global Director ICT
“I stress even more the value of saying “hi” to each other and make sure everyone is doing fine now that everyone is working from home. We are very focused on maintaining the same level of productivity as before, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we are even more effective now. I believe changes like this current disruption of the workplace triggers progress. We are experiencing a digital boost, where all of us need to consume technology in a new way. Technology will become more implemented in our way of working and I think a lot of people will develop a deeper interest in the available digital solutions. This transition has made me realize how easily people adapt new settings.”
Idunn Hals Bjelland de Garcia, SVP Brand, Marketing & Communication
“Several weeks of remote work has brought our small and already unified marketing team even closer. We have reflected over the changes that are happening and shared stories about our beloved ones who are differently impacted by the circumstances. We are indeed in the middle of a challenging time, but as the world as we know it is tearing apart and a new reality is taking form, the connection between employees and across teams seems to be strengthened. In a way, we are actually unified by the distance and challenges we all share, and I think I can say that our vision of changing the movements of life for the better has never been more applicable.”
Silje Troseth, Vice President for Asia Pacific and General Manager for Q-Free Australia
“In the absence of meeting each other in the office, my team has embraced online collaboration tools and conducts frequent video meetings. We have Slack groups where we greet each other in the mornings and our daily stand-ups have transformed into daily video chats. Its really nice to see how we adapt and are creative to find ways to stay connected, which is the most important thing right now. If there are times focus on connectivity and reaching out to each other within and across teams matters even more, its right now! Personally, I have started posting video messages on our local slack channel to pass on information to the team. To me it is a nice and more personal way of communication than word-heavy written communication. I hope and believe all the actions we are taking contribute to soften the blow of isolation.”
Luis Miranda, General Manager for Q-Free Spain and Portugal
“Remote work can make one feel lonely from time to time, especially when we are used to hang-outs by the coffee machine and lunch breaks together. It is even more important now a day to connect with each other: I have virtual coffees with my colleagues, either one to one or in small groups. I also check-in regularly with the team to keep us reminded about that we all, despite this situation, belong to a “real team”. The distance and the uncertainty about how long this will last, puts even more focus on keeping everyone as close as possible.”
Blaz Gostisa, General Manager of Q-Free Slovenia
“My team works with Q-Free colleagues around the world and is used to remote work, but not to home offices like we are experiencing now. Actually, not all of us are able to work from home. We have technical staff responsible for hardware maintenance and reparations on field, that needs to be “out there” to keeps things up running. On the other hand, this new work situation may in fact give our soft-ware developers more peaceful time to code. I am very pleased and thankful to see that efficiency has not dropped, and that we still realize and deliver projects and duties on time.”
#bettertogether and best of wishes to all of you from the Q-Free community