COX’s Resilience Plan

It’s less than a week since we formally announced updated working practices to address the ‘new normal’ we all face.

As with many businesses we’ve needed to pivot the balance of working from the physical to the virtual and from the studio to the ‘remote’.

This isn’t a switch you turn on and off. We needed to understand the specific dynamics of each studio, client team and individual so we could prioritise the best outcome for them – and the work they’re committed to deliver. Thankfully, this has been an efficient process, displaying the best traits of what makes COX, COX.

Our technical teams and leaders have been working tirelessly to plan, test, update and conduct a staged roll-out process that de-densifies our studios and permits a version of remote working that is the optimal balance of safety and continuity.

We’re not ‘there’ yet, but we do feel now that we’re caught up with events rather than being overtaken by them’. We’re under no illusions that today’s efforts will satisfy tomorrow’s challenges but we’re confident we have the agility and commitment to continue to rise to these challenges.

Specifically, the following measures and tools are facilitating the evolution of our work:

• We’ve addressed our people directly to understand their concerns and personal context, specifically this has meant prioritising those who might have greater risk or greater need to isolate
• We’ve engaged with clients and partners to understand their own processes and how best to move forward with them
• We’ve made significant investments in our infrastructure over the past few years to specifically allow for greater flexibility and virtualisation and these are now paying dividends
• Our ICT/DT team have been focused on preparing our people for working from home, should the need arise, starting with fundamental connectivity to our system and using our remote working environment, providing direct virtual access to our machines within the office
• We have established key communication tools with Zoom, MS Teams, Email functionality being provided across devices (mobile phones, laptop, PC’s)
• We’re testing rotations of studio and home-based teams to both de-densify physical spaces and to safely test the efficacy of remote working platforms, allowing us to iron out any bugs and test various scales and loads on key pieces of infrastructure
• To date, every studio has conducted multiple induction, training and WFH readiness sessions with its people

For me personally, what is as pleasing as these formal and structured processes paying off is seeing the ‘softer’ aspects of our community-mindedness coming to the fore. Whether it be taking the chance to support local small businesses while we work remotely, or in finding the head (and heart) space to help contribute ideas for economy-boosting initiatives for our local governments – the community-mindedness of our people continues to shine through.

Resilience is an overused word, but in recent days I’ve seen plenty of evidence that as a collective we want to do more than just ‘cope’, and that we can still find reassurance and pleasure in the camaraderie of our colleagues, and satisfaction in making this tough situation better through our actions, our steadiness and good-humour.

We look forward to sharing some of these stories in the coming days as our ‘new normal’ normalises.

Ian Sutter,

Managing Partner