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How to maintain an award-winning culture, out of the office

For anyone who’s ever stepped foot into Moneypenny HQ, you’ll know that our culture is at the heart of everything we do. 

From our positive and proactive attitude, that’s synonymous with being a Moneypenny PA, to our onsite pub (the Dog & Bone), our unique workspaces (complete with Treehouse), and our famous parties; our culture inspires each one of our employees to give 110% every day. It’s why we’re consistently recognised as a ‘Best Company to Work For’ by the Sunday Times, and why our team continues to grow week by week.

But, in unprecedented times, just like many other businesses across the world, we’ve found ourselves quickly having to adapt to a remote working environment. With this comes new challenges and our focus shifts back to our culture, which we’ve worked hard to build and maintain over the years.

So now with all our employees working from home, away from our beautiful offices, how do we keep the Moneypenny culture thriving?

Collaboration and fun 

Strong communication and collaboration is integral to any successful workplace culture. But never more so than in the current climate.

Teams need to work harder than ever to stay connected, productive, and remain engaged with company goals. Even when we’re in the office, we love using a range of digital tools and tech, to help us work more closely together and form clearer insights on projects and goings-on. This has become even more important in recent weeks.

Workplace by Facebook 

Our most widely used platform at Moneypenny; Workplace is essentially a business version of the consumer Facebook app we’re all familiar with. As our team grows across two continents, it’s increasingly important for us to stay in touch with the entire workforce and nurture our community – no matter where our people are; be it in our American office, on maternity leave, or, of course, working from home.

Workplace allows everybody to stay in the loop with useful (and light-hearted) company updates via the communal newsfeeds. It’s a central platform for keeping everyone engaged with the Moneypenny vision, recognising hard work and achievements, and keeping our internal conversations flowing every day. Our employees celebrate birthdays, share pet pictures and family lockdown tips through Workplace, so the Moneypenny spirit continues to thrive.

We believe it’s making us more productive and maintaining momentum, even in difficult times.

Video meetings  

When we’re at our HQ, we love coming together in our colourful meeting spaces or using our Treehouse to catch up and collaborate on projects, brainstorm ideas, and host our wonderful clients and visitors.

So when we’re working remotely, it’s vital to have an alternative way to talk in-person. While a telephone call is great, video meetings via Microsoft Teams are even better! MS Teams is the new name for Skype for Business and enables us to check in regularly with our teammates and host meetings so we can have deeper conversations and discussions, just like we would in the office.

94% of businesses* claim video conferencing tools like MS Teams and Zoom are improving their productivity, and we feel our employees are much better-connected as a result.

Working as a team 

At Moneypenny, we firmly believe that teamwork makes the dream work! It’s essential that we can still nurture our team relationships outside of the office, on a daily basis. Again, Microsoft Teams; a chat-based hub dedicated to teamwork, allows us to regularly connect with our close teammates throughout the day and talk in real-time, so that our conversations keep on flowing.

Virtual drinks and games 

Now that our onsite pub, the Dog & Bone, is temporarily closed, our online channels are proving to be a great space for us to host our virtual activities that help the team to unwind and have some fun at the end of a busy week.

We’re experimenting with a number of fun games for all the team to get involved with so that we don’t miss our pub too much; including Friday post-work virtual drinks and themed ‘pub’ quizzes via video call, weekly competitions which have included a Through the Keyhole-style; who’s workspace is this competition, along with Come Dine With Us; a look into the team’s culinary skills through the week.

Birthdays and milestones 

We love celebrating a birthday and big milestones at Moneypenny. When we’re in the office it’s compulsory that every employee gets to enjoy cake and desk decorations, courtesy of Moneypenny, on their birthdays. What’s more, we love marking a work anniversary with a standing ovation from the whole company along with gifts and flowers.

But our usual traditions have been slightly hindered by the current circumstances. To ensure we don’t miss out on these key milestones we’re pooling our birthday funds into one big ‘back to the office’ tea party, for when we all return. And using Workplace to reach out to colleagues in new and inventive ways, like this Love Actually-inspired gesture for a recent (pre-lockdown) ten-year ‘workversary’.

As a workforce of 88% women, we have lots of new mums throughout the year. Workplace is also a brilliant tool for new mums to come together and talk within the ‘Mini Pennies’ group and allows us to keep in touch during their leave, ensuring they still feel part of the business.

Health and well-being 

Employee well-being is another fundamental part of Moneypenny culture. As well as checking in daily with our teammates via video call, we’ve also adapted our onsite gym into an online environment so that our employees can keep fit by accessing video exercise classes, hosted on Facebook, for the time being.

Meanwhile, our mindfulness classes have also been switched over to Facebook, so that our employees can catch up with classes every weekday morning.

Our HR experts are focusing closely on mental health and wellness during this time to assist our employees whilst they transition to working from home, especially those living alone who may feel particularly isolated. We have a dedicated group set up on Workplace to share tips on mindfulness as well as activities to help boost mental health and keep active in a variety of ways.

We’ve virtualised our employee ‘thank you’ programme, which celebrates exceptional customer service and people who have gone above and beyond in their role. Workplace, again, is a fantastic platform to announce and congratulate personal achievements, ensuring employees feel valued and appreciated.

Supporting the local community 

It’s always been a mission of ours to not only look after our own people, but to support the community around us in whatever way we can. We are actively seeking new ways in which we can do this during this challenging time.

Our charity, We Mind The Gap, set up by our Co-founder, Rachel, has been offering its volunteers to organisations who need ‘all hands on deck’ to help the vulnerable in our local area, as well as delivering food parcels and care packages to those who need them most.

How can Moneypenny help you? 

If your business has been affected by recent circumstances and you’d like more support or information about our business continuity solutions, then please contact us to find out how we can help. Call us today on 0333 202 1005. 

Investing in your workplace culture is a fundamental part of any successful business. Download our free whitepaper to discover more.

[*Data source: Wainhouse Research]

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