I know this sounds nuts, but we loved 2020! Why on earth would we say that?! We are all living through a global pandemic that has shut down businesses, kept us from gathering with people we love, and basically changed how we live our daily lives…..how can we possibly love a year like that?!

At RoomReady, one of our core values is Stay Grateful. For us that means, we need to find joy and approach every situation as an opportunity. 2020 tested this core value. When we asked our team to tell us about their year and what bright spots there were, we found out that our team is truly living the Stay Grateful core value. Here are some of the reasons why we are grateful for 2020.

We are grateful for 2020 because….there was a global pandemic.

Living through a global pandemic together, we learned to care deeper for others. It taught us to have patience and grace with each other. We became more aware of each other –  our team, our customers, our contractors, our friends, and our family.

We are grateful for 2020 because….physical offices and schools were closed.

When COVID-19 caused physical spaces to close, people started working and going to school remotely. That meant we all had to pivot and figure out how to do that – the technology, the home set-up, the routines, the interaction with teams. All of it had to be figured out and fast.

• Video conferencing adoption has accelerated and is commonly used by a large percentage of people.
• Remote working has become widely accepted.
• Our remote onboarding process was refined and enables us to bring on employees across the country without the need for them to travel to central Illinois.
• Our sales team has gotten more “face time” with customers through video that they could have with in person meetings due to travel.
• We did a 150-classroom project with United Nations International School that allowed them to keep educating their 1500+ students regardless of where they were learning.

We are grateful for 2020 because….many projects were delayed.

Never would we have thought we’d be grateful for projects being delayed. However, the down time allowed us to focus on important things that never seem to be urgent….training and processes.

• All our technicians are now Zoom Certified.
• The engineering team spent time learning about new hardware and software in the market and ironed out some processes.
• Production and Warehouse teams fixed some bottlenecks allowing them to perform more work in the same amount of time.
• Finance/HR reduced the time it takes to process payroll by 50%.
• Contingency plans were created so product could be shipped should our local facility need to shut down for any reason.

We are grateful for 2020 because….we all took a furlough.

At RoomReady, every employee took a one-week furlough to help finances during such an uncertain time. We were all prepared for more, but they were not needed. Furlough is never all rosy, but our team made the most of it.

• Cross-training took place to cover the work for those who were out that week.
• There was a focus on project documentation so someone could pick up where another had left off.
• Employees used their time off to do home projects, connect with their families, and help their community.

If you haven’t taken time to reflect on all the amazing things that 2020 has brought you, don’t wait. You’ll be delighted at the things there are to be grateful for in the crazy!