We Get By With A Little Help From Our Teams

The transition to remote work has meant a shift in how our teams interact and have fun together. Zoom and Teams calls have certainly been a big part of the transition!

Hilldrup's Quality department has a virtual happy hour together.

Remote work certainly has its highs and lows. There’s no question that working remotely, whether at home or in another space outside of the office, has its perks. Little to no commute, more comfortable clothes and perhaps even less distractions. However, not physically being in the same space as your team, work friends and managers week after week and month after month can have an impact on company culture. In this remote work world, spur of the moment conversations turned to scheduled Teams calls, and sharing updates and life news with team members transitioned to taking place over Zoom. And at Hilldrup, we couldn’t be more thankful for that technology – it’s through using this technology and being innovative that remind us all that we’re still one team, one organization with one goal in mind: to be the best moving services company, period.

To celebrate how far we’ve come and to learn more about how our departments are collaborating, we checked in with several department managers across Hilldrup. We hope these examples offer some inspiration as to how Hilldrup, an organization with multiple locations and several hundred employees, has upheld our company’s culture and goals while our office employees have by and large been remote over the last several months.

 

Information Systems (IS)

“The IS team has continued with a Teams meeting (almost) every morning. We find it helps us to stay on the same page and allows for brainstorming when we’re experiencing unique helpdesk tickets, etc.  Especially after having added a new employee to our team in September, I feel these daily meetings help to keep us connected and build our relationships while working remotely. We spend just a few minutes in every meeting laughing with one another and catching up and I feel the time spent doing that is invaluable. While one could argue that the frequency of these meetings could negatively impact our productivity, I believe that not having that time together every morning would have a much greater negative impact on our culture.” – Susan Whitfield, Manager, Information Services

 

Quality & Customer Relations

“We have a team meeting every week with the Claims group and also with the Quality crew. We’ve held a few happy hour celebrations just to stay connected and enjoy a beverage together. Many of our Teams calls are spur of the moment as well just to run something by a team member for support. [In 2020], we enjoyed a Christmas Elf gift exchange and are about to have a housewarming celebration and virtual baby shower as well.” – Linda Rivera, Vice President, Quality & Customer Relations

 

Hilldrup – Capitol Heights

“We have a daily operational huddle at 11am that the entire team participates in. Nothing fancy, but each day we nominate someone for the following day to tell a fun fact about them or the world or a funny joke. We have been having an operational lunch about once a month to say thanks as well.” – Matt Dodson, Vice President & General Manager, Capitol Heights

 

Finance

“Our domestic billing teams and accounting team has been staying connected mainly through Teams meetings and phone calls. We have not had any official happy hours or other team events since December but we’ve had a few small impromptu get togethers!” – Connie McGrath, Vice President, Finance

 

Billing

“The International billing team has Teams meetings to discuss work questions as they come up. These are frequent and I encourage some “cooler talk” during these meetings. This allows us to keep up with each other as we would have when we were in the office. While there are no formal happy hours, this team is very close nit and does a good job of keeping the feeling of togetherness. Our meetings tend to be spur of the moment.” – Chris Cannon, Vice President, Controller

 

International

“We have a unique situation in regard to the virtual environment as it relates to our team in Fenton, MO. Pre-pandemic, some of us would visit that office or we would have members of the team visit our corporate office, but much of our interactions were done on conference calls or over email.  With the use of Teams, we have actually been able to have a better “visual” connection (seeing their faces, office environment, homes, etc.) than we did before the pandemic.

Throughout the pandemic, I have led department meetings every other week that cover a variety of topics, updates, notes, and also just “checking in” and allowing everyone the opportunity to talk and share their thoughts, concerns, questions, ideas, etc. At the office, we have had “patio meetings” which has forced some of us to get outside and out of our offices, which works well on a nice day.

Our teams have had small virtual social team events, larger department happy hours, trivia contests, and probably some virtual events that I wasn’t invited to attend [laughs] over the past year that have helped us remain connected, although not the same as being together.” – John Warlick, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, International.

 

D.C., Maryland, Virginia (DMV) Operations  

“In order to stay connected in operations we resumed our weekly crew meetings over the winter. In Stafford, we utilize the [Center for Employee Development] training room and meet with service providers on Wednesdays, and Warehouse personnel on Thursdays in order to ensure proper distancing. Our Dulles, VA and Forestville, MD locations both hold weekly meetings in their warehouses where there is plenty of space to spread out.” – John Seal, Senior Vice President, Operations – DMV

We’re thankful for Hilldrup’s technology and infrastructure, which allows us to work remotely successfully as well as for our managers and executive leaders for working hard to continue cultivating our company culture – even during what’s proven to be a challenging year for our industry and businesses around the world.

 

Learn more about Hilldrup’s company culture and opportunities to join our team here!

Hilldrup's Quality team on a virtual call.

Members of Hilldrup’s Quality team join for a Virtual Happy Hour event with one another. We’re grateful to have supportive coworkers who are there for one another – when it comes to both work and life!

Hilldrup's Quality team joins together virtually.

Hilldrup’s Quality team joins together for a weekly check-in. Talking business is of course the first matter of business – but a fun background can bring our meetings from expected to re-imagined!  

SMG members on a virtual call together.

Hilldrup’s leaders need to check in with one another as well! Whether it’s discussing the needs of a new or existing client, we understand that our goal to take the very best care of our customers happens when we work together – even if from afar.

Hilldrup virtually celebrates Halloween.

And we couldn’t forget to mention how celebrating holidays has changed in the past year! Above is a screenshot of Hilldrup’s Halloween fun, courtesy of Hilldrup’s Marketing, Client Services and Sales teams. We loved everyone’s creativity and the opportunity to see one another online and in-costume!