Over the past three months or so, many companies have realized that a remote model may be viable for their business. They also recognize that tech isn’t the only consideration — adapting their culture is also an important factor.<\/p>\n
We hosted a webinar on the topic, Office Optional: Merging Culture, Technology and Remote Work. Our speakers included Larry English<\/a>, President of Centric Consulting, Joe Hartsel<\/a>, Enterprise Collaboration<\/a> Co-Lead, and Mark Macioce, VP-IT of Synthomer<\/a> (formerly Omnova Solutions). Nearly 300 guests from across the country registered for the session, and almost 200 joined us.<\/p>\n As we began the session, we surveyed our attendees with three quick questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n Centric was founded as a remote-work company more than 20 years ago, and amazingly coincidentally, Larry recently published a book, Office Optional: How to Build a Connected Culture with Virtual Teams<\/a> on our experiences particularly related to culture. Here are some key points on culture from his discussion.<\/p>\n Collaboration is something many companies struggle with, whether it’s the effective use of technology or fostering a culture of collaboration.<\/strong> As a longtime practitioner in the space, Hartsel had several valuable observations.<\/p>\n Synthomer, formerly Omnova Solutions, started their journey well over a year ago. Interestingly, it began with requests for chat tools on a CEO listening tour among the company’s operating groups. That request led to an eventual deployment of Office 365 and OneDrive followed afterward by a global Teams deployment. Mark Macioce, VP – IT for North American Operations, credits Teams with the valuable support of the company’s acquisition by Synthomer, (which closed during the pandemic) and invaluable support of their rapid move to a remote work model.<\/p>\n A few key points from Mark:<\/strong><\/p>\n Lessons we learned from Marckincluded:<\/p>\n The session was timely, informative and well-attended.<\/p>\n If you missed it, you can catch the full webinar here.<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/OO-Webinar-Image-1-300x158.jpg\")
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<\/p>\nRemote Work: Culture<\/h2>\n
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Remote Work: Technology<\/h2>\n
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Remote Work: Synthomer Story<\/h2>\n
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