What’s New at Helix House?
It’s been one heck of a year so far and we’re still here and forging our own path through it. We’re back to work now in our regular office setting after working from home for two months and are excited to share what’s new at Helix House. First, it’s weird being back. Weird, but good. We’ve said goodbye to our old coworkers and it’s much easier to have a conversation with someone that speaks English instead of one that just meows back. And not having to get up to open or close our office doors if our dog scratches at it? So this is what freedom feels like. Beyond saying goodbye to our pets for 8-9 hours out of the day, a lot more has changed for us. Let’s get into our new routine and some new strategies we’re implementing.
COVID Cleaning Rituals
We’re back in our normal office and are taking extra precautions to protect ourselves and others from getting sick during the COVID pandemic. The first thing we’ve done is required everyone to wear masks when they’re in the office. We’re all in agreement that being unable to see two-third of our face it’s better than risking anyone’s health while we’re in the office. We also require everyone to sanitize their work station when they come in and when they leave for the day. No exceptions. Daily temperature checks are also required — anyone over a 100.4 is sent home. Everyone’s been healthy so far too! Thankfully, we’re a rather small group. There’s eight of us. We’re also very lucky in that our office, while it’s an open floor plan, has enough space for us to social distance. We only allow two people per desk island — there’s four desks per island — and two people are in a separate room that we never use, so we’re pretty separated. We won’t lie, this part is probably the hardest since we all missed one another and genuinely enjoy hanging out and talking. It’s a bit harder when there’s a wall between us, even if it’s glass. We do have a common area in our office that houses our kitchen, a couch, and a couple chairs. If we use the kitchen area, we wear gloves and wipe it down after we use it. Same with the couch and chairs. We try to sterilize everything, just in case.
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Not only are we cleaning and wearing masks, we’re continuing to monitor the situation in Arizona and are working on putting triggers in place to protect ourselves and our clients. If needed, we’ll transition back to a work from home model and continue to provide you with our best work, even if we have a cat sitting in front of our monitor.
New Energy and Strategies
We’re also back and better than ever. It became very clear to us that we operate best when we’re in an office together. It’s more than just productivity and accountability, it’s being around people we like in an environment that’s conducive for working and socializing. It’s so much easier to walk over to a desk or shout across the room than it is to hope someone notices a ping on Skype or Basecamp. Not only that, we can see body language! We may not be able to currently see two-thirds of each other's faces (thank you, masks), but it’s just nice to have face-to-face interactions, even if they’re six feet away. It revitalized us! We’re all ready and raring to go to implement strategies we’ve tested during the two months at home.
New Helix House Initiatives
COVID had us rethink a few strategies and allowed us to take some time to test others that we’ve been thinking about for months now. It hasn’t been all sunshine and daisies, but we think we’ve hit our stride. The content team is now trained on new strategies for link building. During March and May, the content team took time to refine their knowledge on link building and tested it out. And it worked! The in-house team now implements more effective link building prospecting, outreach, and content creation for clients who need a little boost in SEO. The same team is also looking into reorganization of content to catalog all of the backlinks in an organized fashion. This basically means that the content team will have a list of what links are pointing where so they can optimize their SEO practices. While they were doing it right before, this is a new measure to help them track everything instead of going back through old blogs and taking a mental note.
A New Respect Formed
The buzz around the office is that we all have a new respect for those who work from home consistently, and those who were not able to take time off for their own safety, and for local businesses, who had to shut their doors during this tough time. We went through hardships, but recognize we’re one of the lucky ones in that we were able to continue working through the pandemic. We recognize the pandemic is far from over. For all of those affected by COVID, whether from a health, financial, personal, or business standpoint, we respect you more than ever. We talk about the situation every day and try to support local businesses in every way we can. You are the backbone of our society and you have not gone unnoticed. And lastly, to all of the hospital employees who worked tirelessly for months and are continuing to do so, thank you for everything. The world would be a much darker place without you.
