Being flexible and leading by example during a stressful time

I have a small staff, and one of the biggest things I’ve always been an advocate of is being flexible. Now my assistant is at home trying to homeschool a 13-year-old, 11-year-old and 9-year-old and handle work and run her family while her husband’s also working from home and so forth. So flexibility’s No. 1.

The biggest thing I stressed was: “If you can just stay on top of the phones during business hours, that would be great.” There hasn’t been a tremendous amount of phone calls or anything like that. We’re all working at somewhat of a different capacity than we were three weeks ago. So a lot of that stuff can happen outside of normal business hours when you’re able to piece your schedule together. I think flexibility is key. And having apps and a phone system and everything that’s driven on a cloud versus wired into the office has been extremely beneficial.

I had recommended working from home before we went into the shutdown. But I think my staff had to see me do it first before they felt comfortable saying, “OK, I really can work from home.” Then they became more confident that I was OK with the flexibility.

Julianne Hertel, CLTC, is a five-year MDRT member from Worcester, Massachusetts. Hear more in this episode of the MDRT Podcast: