Convoy’s Innovative Approach to Flexible Work
Convoy News • Published on August 12, 2021
There’s no question that the past sixteen months have been transformative for every individual, family and business across our country. At Convoy, we’re working on transforming the freight industry and change has been a constant in the pursuit of our mission. However, 2020 introduced an unprecedented level of change that required us to adapt and adjust the way we do business and how we live our lives.
By working together, the Convoy team has brought out the best in each other (#BOBO) during an incredibly challenging time, and introduced transformative new solutions, which in turn lowered costs for shippers, increased access to quality loads for truck drivers and saved carbon emissions from polluting the environment. We couldn’t be prouder of the team and how they rallied to support each other, delivered for our customers and continued to create opportunities for the hundreds of thousands of truck drivers in our network.
Introducing Our Next Normal
Since our founding in 2015, employees have enjoyed being in the office together to collaborate and solve the most challenging problems in freight. Hallway interactions, whiteboard sessions and other opportunities to come together have been sorely missed and were difficult for many organizations, including ours, to replace during the pandemic.
Many of us have been looking forward to the time when we can gather together once again. We’ve been exploring how best to accomplish this while introducing a model that maintains maximum flexibility for our employees and sustaining productivity and the collective health and safety of our employees.
Like many, we’re referring to this new phase at Convoy as our “Next Normal.” Our leadership team has been exploring a range of options – often engaging employees in feedback including suggestion boxes and focus groups. We then beta-tested potential options with employees who have voluntarily been visiting the office recently to refine our working experience. Learning how to support the best of both the in-office and remote worlds across a variety of scenarios will be something that continually evolves, but we’ll figure it out together – and we’ll be a better team for it.
When we return to the office this fall, our hybrid work model will optimize for collaboration and flexibility. Our new normal at Convoy will be be characterized by:
- No required minimum number of days in office. We recognize that as life starts to get back to normal, the right mix of remote and in-office will vary for each individual. Teams will have specific days of the week set aside for in-office collaboration, meetings, team events or to simply connect and be present with each other.
- Shared spaces and office hubs where employees can gather to connect and collaborate. Going forward, Convoy will leverage the physical offices with intentionality and purpose. We are working hard to create a great in-office experience so that our employees want to be in the office because it is productive and fun to do so, not because they have to be there. We will bring employees together to ideate on new concepts, build team camaraderie and trust and celebrate wins and milestones together.
- Remote work. Local positions will still represent the majority of roles at Convoy. However, we recognize that for some roles, employees can be impactful without regular in-person interaction. To acknowledge that and provide flexibility, we’ve created new Remote Eligible roles which are spread throughout the organization and allow employees to work remotely in a variety of states, and only come into the office a few times a year for specific events.
At Convoy we believe in taking an innovative approach and finding solutions to do the right thing for our customers, our teammates and the environment, and we will continue to learn and adapt our Next Normal to best support our employees and our mission.