As we prepare to officially reopen the office after nearly two years of being fully remote, it’s hard not to reflect on the last 20 months.
The pandemic brought on significant challenges for everyone, both personally and professionally, but we’ve all done an incredible job adapting and keeping our #TEAM mentality alive.
That’s why being named by The Hartford Courant as a Connecticut Top Workplace for the ninth straight year is especially rewarding. In addition to winning this award for 9 consecutive years, we also were top scoring for our category and location.
This reflects our values as a company and speaks to everyone at ebbo. And it shows just how strong we are as a team, especially through a global pandemic.
Here’s more about the award and what it means.
An Award Earned by Everyone at ebbo
Each year, The Hartford Courant recognizes several top companies to work for in the Greater Hartford area based solely on employee surveys. These surveys, which are completed by third-party administrators, ask employees about their workplace.
So, to have earned this recognition now really shows how our employees feel about working here even during the most challenging times.
And our employees have always been our top priority.
That’s why communication has been key. In fact, in our top scoring recognition, ebbo was highlighted for strong communication. A specific quote was mentioned that many employees spoke about in their employee engagement survey: “Senior managers understand what is really happening at this company.”
This is something we are so proud of. In addition to our senior leaders being in the know, we also have weekly updates from our Senior Leadership Team, Town Halls and employee wellness surveys, we’ve kept the lines open as we all continued to navigate a very uncertain time.
We’ve also implemented or continued to uphold new policies over the past year.
- The removal of “labels” (vacation, sick, floaters, etc.) so employees could take a “mental health day” whenever needed, plus allowing employees to roll over 10 total days instead of our normal 5.
- Personalized check-ins to all employees on their status from our People Ops team and an employee check-in survey that goes out every 6 weeks to employees
- More communications around EAP (employee assistance program) resources for counseling
- A special intranet page just for COVID, which contains guidelines and helpful resources
- Fun events, like Trivia, that could be done remotely
- We’ve held several fun online events like Trivia via video
- 2 P.M. Fridays where all employees can log off for a little extra weekend time
- Remote “happy hours” via Teams or Zoom
- Wellness webinars, articles and activities that encourage people to think about their bodies and minds during the pandemic
- Altered our onboarding process to accommodate video training for new hires, ensuring we’re setting them up for success.
Throughout the pandemic, our message has been around support. While these policies have helped tremendously, we continue to send out monthly communications asking people how they’re doing, if they’re having a tough time balancing everything, and what we can do to help them.
Returning to the Office
While we’ve found great ways to interact remotely, many of us are excited to return the office in November.
Many employees are choosing hybrid schedules where they will be able to split their time working from the office and home. During the pandemic, we’ve hired 70 people, implemented two rounds of internship programs and we’re more than happy to accommodate different schedules for both.
While there are still challenges ahead, there are a lot of huge opportunities ahead, and our goal is to maintain the type of environment that will make employees proud to call us a CT Top Workplace in the years to come.
If ebbo sounds like a place where you’d like to work, check out our culture video below and head over to our career opportunities page.