China announced a citywide lockdown of Wuhan on January 24. After 76 days, the government lifted the ban and the people in Wuhan were finally allowed to travel and leave the city. If we compare the fight with COVID-19 to a sports match, I’d say that China has just got through the most difficult time and survived its first half. The country is taking steps to systematically lift restrictions and encourage society to resume normal life with some precautions.
Most of the employees from CACTUS’s Shanghai and Beijing offices come from different parts of China and had plans of visiting their hometowns for Chinese New Year. In late January, considering the risks and uncertainties, we asked our employees to exercise caution. Some cancelled their travel plans and the team was asked to take their laptops home during the holidays.
This is the very first time we were required to work from home for such a long period and for a large workforce. Since communication is critical in such situations, we had to make sure everything was in place. The first problem we encountered was with IM tools. Skype didn’t work well at home, so we moved to WeChat for internal communications. The client servicing team did not have access to the office phones to reach out to clients. As a workaround, we procured sub SIM cards.
Once these infrastructural challenges were out of the way, we focused on easing people into the new situation. Here are a few measures we took to engage everyone.
- In the first week of work-from-home, all team members from the Shanghai and Beijing offices attended a standup on Skype to share updates. Touching stories about our clients who were doctors fighting against COVID-19 in Wuhan were shared in this standup and later on the office intranet.
- Work-from-home tips, a mix of guidelines and personal experiences, were sent to all. These tips were later shared on our official WeChat account; we wanted our subscribers to benefit from these tips.
- Team leaders organized virtual standups and 15-minute quick calls to push things forward as needed. The effectiveness of remote work was maximized as feedback was collected continuously and alternative work arrangements were made in a timely manner. And most importantly, reminders were sent to everyone to take regular breaks and have fun after work.
- To make things interesting, we organized a contest and asked members to share their work-from-home pictures on social media. This was met with a lot of enthusiasm.
Contest poster
Winner of the contest – Winnie Zhang from Customer Service
This period has been an emotional rollercoaster ride. At the beginning, most of us were happy to save time spent on daily commute. As time passed, some team members found the distractions at home annoying. It was also a challenge for our family members. But with time, everyone settled into a routine.
CACTUS was one of the first companies to offer free translation and editing services for COVID-19 research in China. We’re proud that we were able to provide timely and quality service free of charge. We have processed over 250 research articles free of charge. In the past few weeks, we received comments from clients expressing gratitude and appreciation toward the client servicing team for supporting them during this period.
We resumed working out of the Shanghai office (after almost one month of working from home) and the Beijing office will open soon. It’s important that we don’t become callous. I’d still advise people to exercise caution – wear masks and wash hands frequently. It’s just a matter of time before things get back to normal.
