IMAGINiT Technologies Responds to Changing Times

Chantale Marchand, Vice President, IMAGINiT Technologies spoke with AECCafe Voice about the Covid-19 virus policies and changes implemented in their company. IMAGINiT is an Autodesk Reseller Platinum Partner, and one of the world’s largest providers of design technology solutions to the engineering community.

What types of policies are you putting in place for your employees that pertain to the Covid19 virus?

The safety and wellbeing of our employees is of utmost importance to us. Without them, we could not continue to serve our customers. Our response to manage this crisis with our employees was swift and based on recommendations by local governments. As soon as schools started cancelling classes, we knew employees were anxious over childcare options as well as the uncertainty of the times. We immediately advised employees to work from home. For those who wished to continue coming into the office, we advised that they practice extreme social distancing. We worked with the property management companies for each of our office locations to ensure shared surfaces in our offices were sanitized frequently and that cleaning supplies were readily available for our employees. We also reminded employees about all of the resources available to them: employee assistance programs offering mental and financial counselling, telemedicine options that are available through our insurance provider and reminders on how to stay safe and healthy. We also put reporting protocols in place for employees to notify us if they or a family member were ill, had been exposed to COVID-19 or had recently visited any of the global outbreak hotspots.

What kinds of travel policies have you enacted, if any?

Initially we limited all non-essential travel for things such as meetings, conferences, tradeshows and events. We allowed our staff to still travel for the onsite delivery of billable projects such as implementations and training. Quickly times changed as the number of cases accelerated across North America and we reacted by cancelling all travel. Many of our customers were no longer allowing 3^rd parties into their facilities so this decision was not difficult.

Is your community densely populated?

With over 400 employees in 40+ offices spread across North America, our locations range from densely populated cities to suburban offices in states and provinces that are less densely populated. With major outbreaks initially hitting major cities in Washington, California, New York and Massachusetts to now seeing devastating impacts in less densely populated areas such as South Dakota and Iowa, we are closely monitoring the spread of COVID-19 and the impacts it is having on our employees and customers across these regions.

Do you anticipate any changes in the attendance of employees, or jobs delayed or cancelled, services, and/or other changes in the general workflow of projects? If so, what are they?

The immediate impact we saw was everything moved to virtual environments. We leveraged our proprietary ProductivityNOW eLearning solution to put Microsoft Teams learning paths in place for all of our employees and within 2 days our entire company was up and running on this new platform ensuring continuity and virtual, face to face interaction with our customers and colleagues. Many of our training classes moved to online formats versions leveraging our existing LIVE Online platform and instructors who are skilled at teaching in an online environment. Collaboration for our services implementation projects moved to virtual collaboration. Manufacturers of the design software products we re-sell, quickly offered solutions for remote collaboration and we were immediately able to offer virtual, quick start sessions and provide a myriad of offerings to our clients to ensure their distributed workforces were up and running and remaining productive. During any time when there is economic uncertainty, project funding slows down. We anticipate seeing some slowdown but have contingency plans in place to leverage staff that may experience lighter utilization.

Do you have any recommendations for employees or customers in terms of navigating the virus in the workplace?

These are stressful times for everyone. There are so many unknown and novel things hitting us at once – the fear of becoming ill, how to homeschool and keep the kids busy, how to work productively at home with a house full of people, how to put groceries on the table without risking the safety of myself or my family, the economic uncertainly – all of these things weigh heavily on everyone. Employees and customers are trying to figure this out while isolated from their support networks. It’s important to be compassionate, understanding and to listen.

Listen to the needs of your customers and what concerns them. Don’t use this as a time to sell to them, work with them to solve the problems they are telling you they have. Help them manage the challenges these times are presenting. Be a part of the solution.

Listen to your employees when they tell you they need a break or need to get out for exercise in the middle of the day, or when they tell you they are feeling overwhelmed. Oftentimes they just need someone to listen to them.

Communication is also key during these times. We immediately created an online resource center for our customers to visit where content is constantly updated. Our Human Resources team put together an internal newsletter for employees with tips on staying healthy and working from home as well as reminder of the available resources to help support us during these times. Our CEO has regular communications he sends out to the entire company that gives his perspective on the impacts of COVID-19 to our business and our communities in general. Our employees find this communication to be very reassuring during this time and really appreciate the effort he puts in each update.

How do you address the directive that people should try to work from home? Is that feasible in your industry?

We have had people working from home from the middle of March. It seems to be working very well. We leveraged our proprietary ProductivityNOW eLearning solution to put Microsoft Teams learning paths in place for our employees and within 2 days our entire company was up and running on this new platform ensuring continuity and virtual, face to face interaction with our customers and colleagues. Many of our internal teams have implemented morning coffee chats where the team chats via phone and video for 15 mins to provide virtual, social interaction around the virtual water cooler. Other teams are doing virtual happy hours on Friday afternoons and others are holding their team meetings with required video participation so that everyone can see one another as if they were back in the office together. Extra points awarded if a pet makes an appearance!

How many of your staff are able to work in the field?

We currently have very few employees working out in the field. The rare instance is if a customer permits a 3^rd party onsite and then we only allow it if the employee is 100% comfortable traveling and going onsite at the customer location. We have seen very few instances of this as most customers have been amenable to doing everything virtually as they also want to mitigate their risk of exposure.

Do you have the ability to do webinars and teleconferencing to inform your staff of changes to design, concept, construction, etc.?

Yes. We leverage a variety of platforms to host webinars. They include Webex, Go To Meeting and Microsoft Teams. We have seen a huge spike in attendance for our marketing driven webcasts. We leverage a proprietary platform to host our instructor-led, LIVE Online classes that simulates the in-person experience. It offers video, screen sharing, collaboration between instructors and students as well as amongst the students in the class. Students can share their screens with the class and the instructors can monitor each student’s progress from their screen. For collaboration with customers on implementation and workflow projects, we leverage a project management tool to share milestones and project updates. Microsoft Teams also allows us to collaborate and share documents with a defined Team of people and we use this tool both internally and externally with vendors, customers and partners.

Are there specific instructions businesses have been given for dealing with the virus in the workplace by your community or state? If so, please list.

Nothing that is unusual for companies where most employees have the ability to effectively work from home.

Tags: 3D, AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk, building design, building information modeling, CAD, collaboration, construction, covid-19, design, engineering, generative design, Open BIM

Categories: 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21/CMP11, 2D, 3D, 3D printing, AECCafe, apps, architecture, Autodesk, BIM, civil information modeling, Cloud, engineering, field, field solutions, file sharing, IES, IFC, IMAGINiT, infrastructure, IoT, managed services, mobile, simulation, subscription programs, sustainable design

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