It’s inevitable that in times of global unrest and uncertainty people will be scared. I’m scared right now.
Indeed, many of us have had some pretty difficult times over the last few years, but speaking for myself – and I hope to a degree for Incsub – it’s in our DNA to work hard, look after our own, and prevail in the face of adversity.
And that’s exactly what we plan to do during this period.
We’ve built our company on the principle that people’s health, family and loved ones come before work. Always. And as all of Incsub is our family, we strive to look after everyone here as we would our own. Not just now, but always.
A work / life balance is something we all should strive to achieve. We normally give 35 days paid leave per year and encourage / insist that everyone takes advantage of that (vacations are good for the body & the soul!). During this crisis we’re also giving everyone an additional 20 paid days should they need it to care for themselves, their families and their loved ones.
And this isn’t new for us. When someone in our company experiences a loss, or has a medical issue, we always make it a point to cover their wages and help them as much as we can. After all, work is the last thing they should have to worry about during hard times.
More companies need to do this. To stop seeing their people as numbers and ‘just’ staff. And instead seeing them as vital members of your family. Doing that makes how we make decisions and operate during this, and any other crisis (or just the day-to-day), really straightforward.
In terms of our new working life, pretty much all of our team were remote before this started, so we already had a good head start on handling isolation. We already have regular video meetings, encourage everyone to build lasting relationships, and help stave off the feeling of loneliness that often occurs with remote workers.
And the same goes for a lot of our members! It’s not just WordPress support we’re providing now, but also emotional support on a personal level. Many live chat sessions have gone down over the last 30 days with members who often just want to talk about what’s going on in the world. We’re fine with that. In fact we’d encourage it.
And on that front we are also a founding supporter of WP&UP and continue to be an ongoing sponsor. They support & promote positive mental health within the WordPress community. We recommend them to everyone in Incsub (I’ve used them) so they have an outlet outside of WPMU DEV, CampusPress or Edublogs should they need.
Reader, if you could do with some help, visit the site, if you are of the level required to sign checks in a remote working company, especially in the WP space, I implore you to support them.
We’ve always wanted to be more than just-another-company-you-worked for™, this will never stop and the present times are, in fact, an opportunity for us to be better at that.
And in addition to that I’ve thought for a long time that we could do with some cooperation in this space (WordPress) along the lines of paid leave, other worker entitlements and, of course, mental health support for remote workers… especially in a time of crisis like we face now. So maybe, as a group, this is the opportunity to put something like that into place.
Your health, your family and your loved ones come before work.
If you’d like to discuss that more, let me know at james@incsub.com (my actual direct email, so please don’t be offended if I take a while to get back to you).
Stay safe and look after each other.
