Steelkiwi Inc. has over 80 employees. The majority of them are working in the offices of Odessa and Vinnitsa. And a part of the staff is remote workers located in other Ukrainian cities.
In view of the current situation and the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), we strongly asked our staff members to work remotely for 3 weeks at least, from March 12 to April 3. Beyond this time period, every employee is permitted to continue working remotely for as far as they see fit. Our main goal is to minimize all and any risks for staff and reduce the spread of the virus among our employees and their families.
As a distributed company since our inception, we already have systems in place for fully remote work. Our organizational structure and company’s processes were arranged in a way that all remote workers, including teams residing in Odessa and Vinnitsa, could work in a comfortable environment. Part of these processes is a toolset we’re using on a daily basis:
| Use | Tool |
|---|---|
| UseFor having one-to-one or group chat or video calls with team members and clients | ToolSlack, Hangouts, Skype, all messengers |
| UseFor sending and receiving electronic letters | ToolGmail |
| UseFor creating a customizable workspace with documents, files, tables, and presentations | ToolConfluence, Google Drive |
| UseFor managing tasks, organizing work and keeping all projects on track | ToolJira Atlassian, Trello |
| UseFor discussing projects’ designs | ToolInvision, Sketch, Figma, Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Flinto |
| UseFor collaborative development | ToolGitLab, GitHub |
| UseFor scheduling events and meetings | ToolGoogle Calendar, Calendly |
Besides, the remote work rule isn’t new in our company. Employees that want to spend cold seasons in warm countries are permitted to shift towards remote working for weeks or months.
This is why, in our case, remote working isn’t something unexpected. Remote working doesn’t prevent us from arranging the workflow in normal mode. The only change is the shift of all offline meetings to online sessions, as the main focus for us is the health and safety of our employees and their families.
Stay safe and take care!
