When the pandemic hit, sending employees to work virtually, it brought with it a lot of questions, said Bob Tabor, executive vice president, Richard P. Slaughter Associates, based in Austin, Texas.

“We asked ourselves, ‘How do we maintain the support our employees [usually] feel? How can they still deliver a high standard of service?  How can we duplicate the camaraderie?’” he said.

The firm responded to the new reality with virtual communication — lots of it — in the following ways:

• Frequent all-hands get-togethers. These upbeat meetings often took place several times a week. “We asked ‘What’s going on with you? How can we help? Anything fun going on?’” Tabor said.
• Small departmental meetings. These could be more frequent, and featured group problem-solving and work shopping of issues that occurred.
• Messaging on internal platforms. “There were lots of ‘Atta boys!’ and spontaneous video calls. We really throttled up the celebrations of the teams,” he said.

“We’ve learned that if we can get through something as scary as Covid, we can survive anything,” Tabor said.