A fundamental element of Aegis Project Controls is our culture of togetherness. In any given month we have an all company event, team competitions, and weekly group lunches. Our offices are always filled with chatter and laughter between colleagues turned friends. But at a time where the entire company, along with most of the world, has gone completely virtual due to COVID-19 – how do we keep our same level of engagement and togetherness while staying safe at home?
Virtual happy hours worked in the beginning. It was nice to actually see some familiar faces and talk about what we were all going through. But a prompt-less gathering every Friday afternoon was not sustainable. Aegis is a community of like-minded but very different people. Our events at the office cater to different interests and schedules so that nobody is excluded.
Our goal, whether we are at the office, working from home, or on-site is always to create opportunities for Aegonians to learn about each other, interact with one another, and create reasons to smile and laugh during the day.
Keeping that goal in mind the past several weeks has been quite eventful. Every week our Events Team puts together three different activities. Something Aegonians can do within their teams, something that we can all to together via Zoom, and something that sparks conversation on Workplace, our most used social communications platform.
Teams and individuals have been participating in virtual scavenger hunts, trivia night, charades. We played online games like Codenames and Quiplash. We had a TikTok dance challenge and prompted a recipe swap, where Aegonians got to show off their cookie making skills. We hosted a mixology class via Zoom. We post random polls throughout the day about the correct way to eat a Kit-Kat bar, or what series we should start on Netflix. We paired everyone in the company at random for a “Virtual Coffee Break” where they took a moment out of their day to chat and grab a coffee, as if we were still at the office and got to chatting with someone in the kitchen. We prompted parents to swap secrets of how they were managing this new set-up and shared fun ways for everyone to stay active.
This whole experience is new for all of us. We are learning new ways to work and deal with unexpected challenges due to our new environment every day. But no matter what is going on around us, our dedication to the Aegis culture is unwavering. Our focus on well-being, our weekly training sessions, social events, daily check-ins, and anything else that we can adjust and keep going virtually – remain strong.
When this all started, every Aegonian signed a “Work From Home” agreement to not only set a precedent that we would all be staying focused and using this time to better ourselves and our company, but to also remind everyone that this new situation does not change what Aegis is about. The HR team called every single Aegis employee during our first week to check in, and the communication lines with that team and the executive staff remain open as always.
While the entire company has had to make changes during this time, there are some things that will never change. Although most of us would rather be in the office or back to business as usual on a job site, our culture, sense of community, and spirit of Aegis remains intact.
Recent Posts
The Aegis Companies and Pompeian: A case study in effective construction management
Meet Mike Carey – Senior Vice President of Construction Management
Maximizing the impact of project controls in construction management
Inside Aegis Analytics: Risk Management
Inside Aegis Analytics: Ensuring schedule quality
AACE Region 2 Northeast Symposium: Elevating project management standards with Aegis
Inside Aegis Analytics: Metrics that matter
