Challenges of a global pandemic

Reflections on the challenges a global pandemic has posed to our business

As I write this South Africa has been in lockdown (of varying levels) for more than 450 days. Checking for your mask before you leave the house or car has become as automatic as checking if you have your cellphone with you and walking into a store you are quite surprised if you are not greeted by a sanitiser…

While the last 15 months has changed our personal behaviour, it has also had a fundamental impact on the ways in which companies work and engage with other companies. The founders of Retro were far sighted enough to implement a policy of working from client offices for 4 days a week and being in our offices on Friday, which when the pandemic struck meant that we were already equipped with the ability for remote work.

Our delivery has continued at pace, and the two biggest changes we had to make was to figure how to transition our client relationships to a virtual one and to maintain the Retro culture. Transitioning our client relationships, while not easy, was helped by the fact that our clients had to shift to virtual engagements as well. The culture challenge was by far the biggest, and I’m very proud by the work put in by the Movements , coming from an environment where we were used to socialising on Friday and sharing our ups and downs of the week to an environment of work from home and virtual socialising was a massive change for us. Events like Bunny Chef, restarting our Tech Talks, and regular staff communication has helped bridge the gap.

As a company, we are stronger than we were before 27 March 2020, and our culture remains as vibrant as it was before.

I’m also immensely proud of the fact that we’ve been able to maintain our increase and bonus cycle throughout this period and are able to continue being an employer that attracts the highest quality of people.

My next blog post will focus on the growth that we have had over the year and the initiatives that we are currently busy with.

Stay safe, and sanitise