For almost every business and organisation across the globe, working habits have undergone a radical shift over the past 18 months. The ways in which we communicate, travel, do our shopping, and conduct our work have all had to transform rapidly, with homeworking still by and large the norm for most of us even in June 2021.
This blog post represents an opportunity for Scene to take stock of this change, and to reflect on the lessons provided to the company throughout this recent period largely defined by uncertainty - lessons around how we work best when apart, how we managed staff wellbeing, and how we continue to deliver positive impact through our projects and partnerships at home and abroad. Not only reflecting about the past, the piece also serves as a canvas for Scene’s development into the future - what are the social, environmental, and commercial needs that the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed, and how will Scene continue to deliver its environmental and social impacts in a post-COVID world?
Vijay – Co-Director
You’re the Co-Director of 2 companies - Scene Connect and Connected Energy Technologies. How has COVID-19 affected each company differently?
Both have been affected in major ways, but thankfully everyone is healthy.
Connected Energy has been harder to manage because of its cross-border operations and the fact that we manufacture and ship products. We have also had to consider impacts on teams in the UK and India, though the Indian team has been our saviour as they have been close to the customers and manufacturing. We have also gone from a company that regularly sends people overseas to one which is – for now - fully remote. The business has been affected in just about every way – from health of staff and partners, manufacturing and supply chain delays, and general market activity reducing to just about a stop.
Scene, on the other hand, is a more mature business and we have adapted really well. Having much of our core business in the UK has also helped.
Are there things which you’d wished you’d been more prepared for as a boss and team member?
My dad is an epidemiologist and he told me in March 2020 that the pandemic would last around 2 years and that a vaccine would not simply bring an end to the pandemic. But nobody in the media was saying it and so it didn’t quite sink in. I wish I had taken a longer term view rather than believing that everything would be back to normal within a year. Assuming a 2+ timeline on the pandemic would have changed project designs, manufacturing plans, office leases and lots more!
How has COVID changed the way you think of, and manage, your businesses going forward?
This period has reinforced how excellent our team is: people have adapted and made things work for them. We’ve always been relatively flexible, but this period has certainly made me less bothered about where people work now.
On the flip side, being with customers, collaborators and colleagues is really important for learning within a business and for maintaining an attachment to the company and its mission, even for me as a Director. Being starved of that contact has been very hard for me. Personally, I can’t wait to get back out on the road, travelling to see customers and colleagues, and I know many colleagues feel the same.
Vijay is Co-Director of Connected Energy Technologies, developing remote monitoring technologies for domestic solar PV and biogas generation.
Alex – Director
What have been the greatest challenges to monitoring and maintaining the wellbeing of your employees at Scene?
If you don’t see people face-to-face on a regular basis, it’s harder to pick up on each person’s general state of wellbeing. There are a hundred emotional cues which are never captured on a Zoom call! It’s also harder to just have a quick check-in with people, either at their desk or around the office. I’ve grown to taking a more direct approach of setting up check-in meetings with staff without telling them in advance - in the hope of getting a more authentic response when I call a meeting and then ask “How are you?”
Our weekly team meetings have become as much about checking in as people as they are about organising work as a company, and I’ve been making sure that all the mini-meetings throughout the week contribute to the kind of organic camaraderie that you would otherwise get from being in the same place.
A more flexible and remote-working office culture seems to be a growing trend and source of appeal to employees. How do you feel about this future change?
Scene has operated flexible working locations and hours prior to COVID-19, and working-from-home has accelerated that. We’ve even taken to employing people who might never even come to the office, creating a larger and more diverse pool of potential employees.
There is no “one size fits all” solution, with some staff very keen to get back to the office, and others happy to never return! As far as the company is concerned, providing that the team is happy and productive, we’re happy to continue operating a flexible working environment.
How has COVID-19 affected the ambitions and opportunities for Scene?
Compared to the last big economic contraction, the focus this time is on the “Green Recovery”. It seems like the pandemic has made many people realise that business-as-usual was always unsustainable – to our health and wellbeing as much as to the natural environment. This represents an opportunity for Scene. Ours is a mission-based business, committed to increasing renewable energy and increasing local ownership and control - if there is an opportunity to bring this approach into the mainstream, then we’re here to help this happen.
David – Commercial Manager
How difficult has it been to develop the EMBLEM flexible mini-grid concept without being able to travel or meet your partners in person?
It has been challenging. Delivering international projects with local partners requires really good communication, whilst building rapport and buy-in from local stakeholders is much harder through computer screens. The lack of casual conversation and ‘hanging out’ - always so conducive for generating new ideas – has also been a loss.
Being closer to the project site makes it less abstract and can affect the gravity assigned to certain decisions. And for the UK teams designing the project, lots of information needs to be passed on by intermediaries, where data inevitably gets lost and nuances left unaddressed.
What silver linings have there been to building a business while working-from-home? Did you achieve some things that would have otherwise been missed before the pandemic?
We’ve improved our internal processes - from planning, to technology testing and project monitoring – and we have built up a more robust set of procedures. We’re also much less tolerant of risk and uncertainty. Lockdown also afforded the opportunity to step back and think more deeply about the What’s, Why’s and How’s of our work. It’s interesting to think back to the start of the EMBLEM project and compare our thinking to now. Many subtleties have changed. Perhaps the lockdown is partly to thank?!
What advice would you give to someone developing their own business as we emerge from COVID?
The post-COVID world is different but it hasn’t stopped. Just crack on and try make it work!
EMBLEM seeks to establish a network of evolving mini-grids in rural sub-Saharan Africa, growing in tandem with the community’s economic development and energy access.
Sandy – Research Manager
This past year you’ve been managing projects in Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique. What’s hit you the hardest as a manager?
COVID has compounded the existing challenges which we experience with international projects. The key issue has always been building relationships and trust, which are essential building blocks for a productive working relationship. Whilst video calls offer a platform for this, they are still a very structured and restrictive space, often hampered by dodgy connections and delays. Unable to travel and meet project partners (or even our own staff), we have often struggled to build teams which work together as effectively as we would want. The constant shifting restrictions from country to country is an additional challenge, and huge flexibility must be included within project programmes to ensure things like stakeholder engagement can go ahead within local guidelines and ensuring safe environments for participants.
How has COVID affected your expectations towards international projects for Scene? Will Scene’s work increasingly focus more on local projects?
Scene’s staff are still passionate about working the international low carbon space and our ideas and work will reflect this passion. Whilst the world has undoubtedly changed, the tools to be able to work remotely are improving and the global effort to control COVID is starting to take effect. I fully expect Scene staff to be working internationally in 2022 and beyond.
It’s important to mention that recent government aid budget cuts – unrelated to COVID-19 - are a greater threat to the types of international innovation projects which Scene is often involved in. The UK government must increase its ambitions internationally and harness the current global situation to facilitate green growth where it will have greatest impacts.
Cathy – Social Engagement Lead
This past year you’ve had to lead stakeholder engagement with partners in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Ghana – all virtually. What approaches have you adopted to ensure that plans and messages are communicated effectively?
We always make sure to design our community projects ‘with’ end-users rather than ‘for’ them. However this past year we’ve had to streamline our communications to account for engagement activities being delivered without us present.
The very first step is always to begin with the end in mind: What does success of this engagement look like, for each partner involved? As a project consortium we have had to ensure agreement and harmony on the intended outcomes.
I like using the “MoSCoW” prioritisation method to be clear on the ‘must haves’ (non-negotiables), the ‘should haves’, the ‘could haves’, and the ‘would like to’ haves. From this, we worked hard to define how the in-country partners went about delivering the priority must-haves.
In parallel to this, communication really boiled down to two things: understanding each partner's capabilities, and conducting regular check-in meetings to monitor progress and keep confidence high.
What advice would you give to someone planning end-user stakeholder engagements virtually?
Identify a ‘Community Champion’ - this person or group should understand your project objectives very well and be deeply connected to the local community. They will act as your go-between, helping you navigate complex and subtle local dynamics, and supporting you to communicate and maintain your project to local people long after you’ve left.
Lastly, build a robust and inclusive monitoring and evaluation strategy to keep track of the impacts of your engagements. Having a reliable and regular feedback loop throughout the process will allow you to continuously reflect on and improve your engagement work.
Can you share an example of engagements that did and did not go well? What did you learn?
Last year on project REFRUIT over a video call we trained a group of agricultural field officers to deliver a remote farm survey across 40 rural farmers. Since the first training workshop was plagued with connectivity issues, we quickly found a competent ‘Champion’ amongst the group, and then trained him individually to teach the others practitioners. A Whatsapp group was also created to address issues directly and quickly when practitioners were in the field. We came to learn that being flexible and creative were hugely important in successful project delivery.
Sessions can be made more engaging when participants are also the facilitators.
Agricultural Field Officers were trained virtually by Farm Hand and Scene during REFRUIT project.
Anya – Engineer
You joined Scene exactly one year ago, and have still not come into the office! How have you learned to keep communication healthy, morale high, and maintain focus? What advice would you give to yourself at the start?
Scene has great channels for communication. I think this is a main contributor to me having a good last year and creating great relationships with my colleagues. From the beginning everybody was extremely friendly and I never felt uncomfortable to ask for help.
WFH definitely has its challenges when it comes to learning and integrating new knowledge, and sitting next to a colleague will always be a better way to learn a new excel hack, have a constructive brainstorm session for a project, or even pick up on office gossip. However, I feel that I have made a great crack at breaking down the WFH barriers and I pushed myself a bit last year - delivering presentations, saying yes to new unfamiliar tasks, and even creating a virtual ‘cook-a-long’ menu for our remote Christmas party.
In terms of staying productive, I love a checklist. I have to write everything down to keep on top of things, maybe even more so this year. To ensure a healthy work-life balance, I also try to keep to a normal working day, taking regular breaks between tasks. A few of the team have been big fans of the Pomodoro technique this year.
Your experience will become increasingly common for many others, as the working world embraces more flexible and remote working habits. What cautions would you give to those who are curious to work for a UK company from an Indonesian archipelago in swim shorts?
Having experienced a full year working as normal in my previous job, and a full year working remotely at Scene, I know that flexibility is best for me. I am excited to experience the benefits of WFH and also for commuting to the office and collaborating with people in person. It’s also really great that Scene is open to this balanced approach, accommodating employees’ personal commitments and wellbeing.
If you have a great working environment, a strong team, and the option to work flexibly, then I say grab it with both hands.