Last Friday, HCD’s office administrator Liz won the newly launched HCD Friday pub quiz, with 13 points out of a possible 20. Quizmaster and General Manager, Peter Brown, launched the pub night following a suggestion from one of our Real World Evidence team. The pub uses Microsoft Teams to link all HCD staff, all of whom are now working from home. The conversation flows easily, with much laughter and leg pulling and everyone on the team now looks forward to the virtual Friday gathering, all having a glass or can of their chosen beverage in front of them to toast colleagues.

The virtual pub idea sits alongside a number of team bonding initiatives. Peter is organising regular group conversations, anchored around project or similar collective work activities, “the idea is to stimulate colleague team working to try and replicate the ad hoc team conversations that would naturally occur in our office, before the lock down” Peter commented “we have a gifted, multi-disciplinary team and working on ideas and solutions is very much at the core of our business, so I was looking to keep that in place in these unprecedented times”.

 

Jamie, HCD CEO enthusiastically supports all initiatives to keep the team together, despite home isolation “despite the lock down, I am committed to preserving and fostering the collaborative nature that underpins our work with our clients”.

 

During lock down, Jamie is continuing to progress recruitment, scheduling one-to-one mentoring and looking at all ideas for increased team contact focused on sharing needs and devising innovative health economic solutions, as well as participating in progress updates. HCD is using Zoom, Microsoft Teams and where appropriate virtual meeting software as specified by client.

 

As Jamie says “we might be locked down, but we aren’t down hearted”.