Our Working Remote Journey

The end of the year is a great time for many of us to stop and reflect upon what the past year has brought us. This year, I’m reflecting a bit further back than that…. going back to March 2020 and the start of the pandemic for us here at Henry Schein Medical Systems.

In January 2020, we had created a small task force to map out what a Disaster Recovery plan would look like for our company, and how we would quickly be able to mobilize in the event of a natural disaster such as a fire, flood, tornado etc. At that time, there was also some early mention of the Coronavirus, so we were also including a pandemic into our plans as well. Little did we know that by March 16, 2021 we would need to execute those plans and send our team members home to work remotely.

I think we all know where we were on certain days, during certain events in our lives, and this day is still very fresh in our minds. That Monday we said our goodbyes at the end of the day and began our remote working journey. We naively thought we would see each other again in a couple of weeks when things returned to “normal” ….how wrong we were.

As managers, supervisors, and team members, we were pondering on how successful we would be able to be with our entire team working from home. Outside of a few specific team members, we all worked together in our Boardman, Ohio office.

Surprisingly, we were able to send our team members home to work with very few hiccups and continue to service our clients in the manner that they have come to expect.

Two weeks became “see you in 3 months”…3 months became “see you in the fall”…See you in the fall became “see you in the New Year, until April 2021 when the decision was made that the vast majority of our team members would permanently work from home.

Over the course of 2020 and into 2021 we found that we were able to adjust nicely to a remote work environment, thanks in large part to the advancing technology all around us. We quickly adapted with tools such as Slack, Teams, Go to Assist and video conferencing to be able to connect with each other and our clients. We had virtual Town Hall meetings and Happy Hours internally to keep the teams connected.

That takes us to today, where the hard decision has been made to downsize our current building. Our current “work home” has been 760 Boardman Canfield Road since 2006. For many of our team members this is the only “work home” they have known with MicroMD. I still remember the day we moved into our new building (in the dead of an Ohio winter, no less). The building was beautiful and newly built just for us and customized throughout to meet our every business need. Over the years our work home has served us well and many memories have been made. However, these days with only about 5 or so team members working in the office on a regular day, a 20,000 square foot building can seem a little lonely.

Moving into a smaller space and primarily working remotely allows us several advantages which will also be felt by you, our valued MicroMD clients. First, working remotely allows us the opportunity to find the very best talent when expanding our teams, regardless of their physical location. Financially, moving into a smaller space gives us financial savings that allows us to reinvest into our business and expand our product offerings. I’m happy to say that we already have some great things on the horizon for you in the upcoming year!

While we are sad to leave our beloved work home, we are also excited to have a new home base and to start making new memories. Once we are past the pandemic, we will be excited to welcome both our team members and clients to come check out our new space.