The popular Entrepreneurial Operating System that we use works in good times and bad.
However, because the development of EOS® pre-dates the significantly altered world of COVID-19, the pandemic has forced us to adjust our tools and processes.
Working at home is a significant change and brings unique management challenges that we can discuss with our executive coaches at Vistage® management system and incorporate into the EOS® framework.
The bulk of the EOS® process relies upon meetings, but meetings take on a whole new flavor when we are all working from home. Social distancing can easily lead to emotional distance. Technology is amazing, but a Microsoft Teams meeting can miss a team member’s emotions or personal struggles.
A team member may have a family member with coronavirus, or a pre-existing condition that makes them especially vulnerable to COVID-19. At Dasher, we are finding innovative ways to heal the hurt for our team.
We stay in close touch with every one of our team members to ensure that they are coping well. We have always operated as a trauma-informed team. This means delivering nonperishable food to our teammates’ homes and apartments and paying for health insurance for team members who were furloughed by the loss of work.
And in this current environment, we are not only focusing on current needs but on the future. While we train our team members all the time, we are doubling down on our trauma-informed training.
Some may find this approach to be counter-intuitive. Skeptics have expressed their fear that we will train employees who will learn, then leave. But we have, happily, found quite the opposite. Ongoing training is part of the secret to our remarkable retention rates and customer satisfaction measures.
We offer a long menu of classes on the professional side, thanks to licenses through THINK ZOOM. We teach professional skills such as Excel, Advanced Excel, Project Management, and other software training.
We remind team members frequently, via emails, to take time out for these classes, and we track what lessons they have taken. These trainings encourage team members to stay, grow, and become better and happier employees for it.
Our Dasher Academy for Purposeful Living is also a vital training opportunity. Once a face-to-face course, the training has gone virtual as well. The five classes are now a bit longer, running about two hours, two days a week.
We also provide training in motivational interviewing, health topics, and trauma-informed care.
One team member earned certification as an EMT. Another showed a newfound passion for SharePoint, so we provided training.
Throughout our trainings, we address the influence of trauma.
Every one of us is dealing with trauma on some level. We may react with anxiety, depression, anger, and resentment, especially in stressful times. These are natural reactions.
At Dasher, we aim to create a safe space to help our people cope with their feelings.
We routinely check in on our team to assess, not their work product, but their personal well-being.
Our culture has been contagious –in the best way. Employees have paid it forward by helping each other. Dasher teammates have formed sub-groups and created their own separate channels on Microsoft Teams. They stay in touch regularly.
We are fully aware that, as employers, we cannot solve the world’s problems, but we can be supportive listeners who provide links to help. When we do that, the whole team sticks together and stays together.
Dasher is a data-driven, customer contact services operation with a focus on communicating complex messages to diverse populations. Specific capabilities include face-to-face communications provided by our field teams, customer engagement strategies provided by our call center and member engagement staff, and secure, complex, variable mailing services provided by our production team. Dasher is an experienced Minority, Women and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (MWDBE) with a bestselling book, “The Talent Pool,” and is certified by AICPA with the SOC2SM Type2 data certification and validation.