By LSJ Team -
How are you staying connected while working from home? We asked LSJ readers to share their creativity. Here are some of our favourite responses.
The Gadens Family Law team
“The Gadens Family Law team have embraced telephone and video conferencing as a way of connecting with the team across the Melbourne and Sydney offices. The previous ‘stand up’ team meeting around a whiteboard has been replaced with an electronic whiteboard and conference call. About 20 participants talk through everything from capacity, procedural changes to the latest baking, television or craft trend keeping us all busy in isolation.
“Our usual tea-room chatter has also been replaced by a WhatsApp group with a steady stream of memes shared to the team, and we’ve also started a weekly trivia video conference on a Friday afternoon as a way of re-connecting and unwinding whilst showing off our knowledge of random trivia and science facts.”
Gilbert + Tobin
“At G + T we fast-tracked Workplace (by Facebook) as our new internal comms platform, launched two days after we started working remotely. This basically takes place on the firm Intranet – but much better since it is user driven. (Even though we tried, the Intranet was never that.)
“Outside of our official channels like ‘Everyone @ G+T’ and team groups for each practice (such as Corporate Advisory, Disputes & Investigations etc) and information channels like ‘Tech Hack From the IT Team’ we also have groups for Families, Diversity and Inclusion, The G+T Foundation, and OUT (our LGBTI and allies group) to name a few. These groups provide a place to share updates, news and ideas on each topic and they are open to anyone in the firm that is interested in these conversations and the various initiatives in place at G+T.
“Some of the other social groups that have popped up organically on the platform include Music Appreciation, G+T Book Club and a host of smaller team- and project-based groups that bring people from different areas of the firm together to make collaboration and communication easier.”
The Legal Home Loans team
“Our virtual Friday team drinks this week were Tiger King-themed. We also had cupcakes sent to team members. We are being creative to keep connected as a team and keep morale high, and themed Friday drinks give us all something social to look forward to in the week!”
Attorney-General Mark Speakman
with colleague doggos Lucy and Ralph.
The Law Society of NSW events team
daily check-in meeting on “dress up Friday”.
Need help mum?
Ashurst lawyer Melissa Yeo working from home with her demanding new colleague.
Claire Chaffey
LSJ editor
Chief office floofs Ted and Lulu overseeing a very important meeting.
Nicholas Stewart
Partner at Dowson Turco Lawyers
“We have a daily briefing with our whole team on Microsoft Teams. It facilitates a daily WIP, communication across practice groups where a client has multiple matters on foot and allows the team to have a joke and talk about their life in isolation. We are also running civil and criminal court matters remotely by way of telephone and video attendances, written submissions and electronic filing of evidence and court documents. Finally, we have found this isolation experience has improved our internal communication and kept us more abreast of clients who are receiving professional services across our teams.”
Experts Direct
A lunch meeting with Experts Direct, featuring trivia and Uber Eats ordered by the bosses.
Francisco Silva
The Law Society’s digital marketing specialist Francisco Silva, with office assistant Madalena.
Justin Moses
In-house lawyer at AIME (Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience)
“AIME Mentoring is maximising its use of the Zoom and Slack platforms to stay connected: our Slack platform has a dedicated Wellbeing channel that gets an extra boost every ‘Thankful Tuesday’ with posts of gratitude for our good fortune; and we convene on Zoom almost daily for 30-minute recharge sessions which thus far have featured meditation, dancing (salsa and freestyle), rap composition and performance, painting, storytelling, and introducing our co-worker AIME-imals (i.e of the furry kind!)”
Emma Heuston
The Remote Expert
“Aside from talking to my plant, Gloria Gaynor … I want to jump in and say this is not your usual work from home arrangement. This is coping with a pandemic, home schooling and socio-economic issues. To that end, kindness and understanding will go a long way for remote teams, as will human connection”
Gavin Vallely
HFW Australia Managing Partner
“Our entire worldwide business has been set up to operate remotely and many offices in our international network, including all offices in Australia, are largely operating on a remote basis. A likely development that will emerge from the current situation will be a change of attitude regarding agile working arrangements and the capacity of institutions to adapt, including the necessity for a large CBD presence – there are many examples of necessity being the mother of invention.”
