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IRI and Babson College have teamed up to conduct a longitudinal study on the impact that the coronavirus pandemic is having on R&D and innovation management. In order to understand these impacts over time, we will be conducting a series of surveys over the next two years, tracking such key issues as productivity, morale, culture, collaboration, and communication.
If you manage a team(s), how has your approach changed over the last year?
- Higher level of planning, but virtual meetings are flexible.
- Most in-person meetings have changed to virtual ones via video.
- Personal calls and encouragement further down the org structure. Would have done with live visits and they're now online.
- More intentional conversations with individuals since casual interactions are less common.
- More Microsoft Teams meetings
- Open communication, regular virtual review meetings
- Additional phone calls at scheduled times, as well as more ad hoc phone calls/meetings.
- Driving online social events, more frequent one-on-one meetings, making sure visibility to projects.
- More frequent meetings, higher communication levels.
- I'm having to be more deliberate about checking in with my team. Previously it was easy to just drop in, catch someone as they passed by, etc.
- More frequent team/staff meetings (entirely virtual)
- More intentional communications and more ad hoc discussions via messaging apps.
- Increased Documentation and Communication
- More flexible options for doing work.
- Shift from frequent meetings in person to frequent video and phone calls.
- More often touch points.
- More planned interactions, both on an individual and group basis.
- More frequent calls, but virtual meetings only.
- My team has always been virtual.
- Need to be more intentional with communication - casual interactions do not occur and rigorous process needed to ensure everyone stays connected.
- We have increased the frequency of recurrent laboratory team meetings to be in closer contact and make sure there is a forum where all work-related/lab-related issues during the pandemic (workplans/schedules/lab equipment/maintenance/...) can be addressed. HR and the Businesses are part of those meetings.
- More video calls
- More phone and video calls required to maintain 1:1 contacts
- More intentional in making personal connections daily.
I attribute this to:
- Missing spontaneous discussions and face to face meetings bring more context.
- Level of experience/expertise and resilience, quick adaptation to new team interaction methods, approaches.
- Some projects have had to postpone field trials.
- Inability to travel, government stay at home mandates in some countries, and inability to socialize in person intercontinentally.
- Stronger focus
- Team is on-site
- Strong drive of the teams and good communication tools.
- Flexibility in schedules, understanding that everyone is in the same situation, and understanding that tools available maintain productivity.
- Experience knowing how to get actions done. Support for each others unique situations.
- Other responsibilities at home.
- Overall complexity required to get work done -- suppliers are sometimes slower to send samples due to staff issues, customers are slower to test, either due to staff issues or production lines being full (high demand).
- Lack of being in person
- Frequent communication
- Separation
- Staying connected and using the tools available to continue to collaborate.
- More focus towards work (less things to do outside of work).
- More meetings both regional and global ones.
- High base motivation of the team and mutual trust.
- Reduced time in the lab
- In some cases, more efficient, but in other cases, not as much. Primarily since unable to go to where the work is done, see customers.
- Less interruption
- Keeping our labs and pilot facilities operational throughout the pandemic, quickly adapting others to effective remote working arrangements, including use of new tools.
- Lack of in-person collaboration.
- Delays at customers due to COVID; difficulty managing work-from-home plus kids schooling-from-home; limit on number of development chemists we can have in the lab at a given time.
- My team has always been virtual.
- Dedicated time to write reports and do data analysis, people working longer days when at home.
- Digital preparedness of our organization (Teams, Databases, ERP and CRM all accessible via VPN previously). Working culture of trust in associates.
- Less interaction for open end, creative endeavors.
- More concentrating on the project and less distractions.
Additional IRI resources:
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