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Remaining Resilient: The ‘New Normal’ from Monday

On Monday we begin the first working week of our ‘new normal’; both safe and connected, remote yet productive.

There will be various glitches, barriers that we anticipated and ones that we didn’t, but our initial assessments of continuity and productivity are very encouraging, and our people are responding with the intelligence, adaptability and good humour we need.

These necessary behaviours have been most clearly demonstrated in recent days by our IT teams and we must once again thank them for giving us this opportunity, because frankly, without them we’d be ‘stuffed’. And I’d take this opportunity to remind us all that we can best thank them for their dedication by continuing to follow their advice and recommended processes as we all ‘embed’ in our new working environments.

I would end this week with some further good news, that our suspected COVID case in Melbourne has returned a negative and that all staff from that Project Office are clear. This event was a great test for us but I’m grateful that it’s become an ‘academic’ one. And to be clear, this ‘negative’ does not change our national WFH decision.

We are already seeing the creative ways our teams are remaining connected and how we’re using virtual to replace the physical as we strive to deliver on our commitments, to both each other and our clients. Whether it is Canberra switching its physical ‘gallery’ space to a virtual one to assist a valued artist-collaborator, or staff using software as a virtual ‘lunch room’ for staying connected informally. We’ll do as much as we can to help facilitate this connectedness, but we also look to you to help create improvements and find workarounds to the challenges we will all no doubt face.

To this end we will be issuing a series of guides and tutorials in the coming weeks to assist you in the effective transition from studio to home. These will cover the whole gamut of functions; IT tutorials, HR and wellness guides through to best practice WFH behaviours.

Enjoy the weekend with your loved ones, stay safe and let’s enter ‘Week 1 of our New Normal’ with the resolve that shows that we’re up to the challenge.

Best Regards,

Ian Sutter, 

Managing Partner