As I write this in early June, we are just starting to see the first indications of an opening up of the economy, with markets and schools starting to kick back into life, and cities starting to see more people making journeys on a daily basis. However, for many of us nothing has really changed, and life goes on as we continue to work from home where millions of us have been for the last few months.
Onboarding during lockdown
At the beginning of this year, the P2 Academy started out with an ambition to identify and onboard our next set of talent. We identified some great candidates, interviewed them, made offers to start … and then along came Covid-19. Like many organisations we had three choices – delay, stop completely or carry on. Our response was very simple – we carried on. Identifying and onboarding talent into our Academy is incredibly important to us and our clients, and we regularly get fantastic feedback on them as individuals and their performance on assignment. We wanted to make sure as we come out of the back of the pandemic that we had great candidates in place and ready to go.
Adapting to the ‘new normal’
Of course, we had to adapt. Our onboarding sessions, team meet & greets, and formal development all became virtual. However, adapting also allowed us to introduce changes that have been for the better. Daily stand-ups got the team together (as we were all at home at 8am we generally managed to get great attendance – client meetings permitting!), and more use of VC and Teams to support collaborative working are both great examples. Our formal development had to be refocused to online learning, which then gave the new team members greater flexibility to undertake learning at a time and pace that suited them, and the more experienced team members were inevitably online to provide support and help when required!
Fortunately, with the fantastic team at P2 and our brilliant clients, we were able to land our new team members into assignments quickly, giving them real-life assignments based on experience alongside their formal development learning – all from the comfort of their living rooms!