Three months ago, Justin published CFO Perspective: What I’m thinking about, where he wrote about Multiview’s approach to the health and economic uncertainty that COVID-19 brought as well as Multiview’s collective drive to not only endure, but to prevail through this crisis.
This highly contagious unprecedented virus gave us an initial sense of uncertainty, causing the central bank rates to fall and a surge in demand for toilet paper. It drove a direct line of thinking with my CFO hat. Let’s make sure that A) The company adapts during this pandemic B) We’re in a position to operate efficiently during COVID-19 and in its aftermath, and C) Perhaps we can find the opportunity to thrive during this turmoil.
A growing number of communities continue to reopen and require masks to be worn in public places. It’s premature to claim success against any of our initial goals. Nonetheless, we continue to operate with long-term goals and objectives in mind. Besides, this period gave the Multiview’s leadership team a collective opportunity to pause and recalibrate what success will look like during and after COVID-19.
Uncertainty forces a reversion to first principles, and at Multiview, that means weighing our decisions and the outcomes against our values.
We had to make some difficult decisions at the start of this crisis as it relates to our overall employee group that impacted every single Multiview employee. We worked hard to communicate transparently and regularly about our operating considerations, the challenges and opportunities we saw ahead, and the actions we were taking. Across the senior leadership group, we try to connect with every member of our team at least once a week and our standing weekly company-wide meetings. We’re learning too that working from home doesn’t mean that everyone can work from home. Continuing to support our team members and the unique challenges that it creates for members is something that we’ll need to continue working on to live up to our expectations of being People First.
The most apparent concern is for clients in sectors immediately impacted by the virus: clients in retail, hospitality, and those that have seen revenue slow to a trickle due to isolation rules. Have we done all that we can to help them? What improvements are needed to be able to support them as the economy recovers? Our planning continues to focus not only on the immediate challenges at hand but also on how we can help our clients succeed.
Shortly before the onset of COVID-19 in North America, we welcomed a new VP, Client Success, to the Multiview team. Bev Young stepped into her role as the spearhead for our client obsessed culture. Its invigorating reading and hearing stories from her and her team about our clients.
COVID-19 and its impacts were indeed a global phenomenon. For some time, it felt like the entire world was locked down. That shared experience reinforced why our value of stronger together was so significant. Success is most likely to be achieved and celebrated collectively. We’ve remained in close communication with our partners, including our clients and suppliers, to ensure the collective health (medical and business) of all. We share some of the outcomes from our collective work with our partners in the coming weeks and months.
COVID-19 forced employers to figure out very quickly how to work from home. We are fortunate that we have some experience support staff working remotely this on a limited basis, and could, therefore, transition this for all staff very quickly three months ago. The extended period has forced us to look at internal operations processes that allow our team to continue excelling in their roles and support our clients, all in the context of being at home and remote from their colleagues.
We have to continue our progression in working smarter as a company, and our staff, clients, and partners will experience the continual improvement we make internally in the future.
Believing in Better was adopted as a value because it’s why we are continually seeking to improve and avoid stagnation. Over the 30-year history at Multiview, the company has had to weather its share of corporate and market challenges. The broad impact that COVID-19 is having – on the world, employers, clients, and employees means that we’ve got a wide set of standing practices to revisit and make better.
Justin has worked at Multiview as the Chief Financial Officer since 2017. Prior to this, he held progressive finance roles in multiple Canadian headquartered international development agencies. He has worked with local and international governments, boards of directors and funding agencies in North America, Africa, Asia and South and Central America.
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