CFI understands that the COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult to navigate for everyone and we’re committed to fostering a safe and secure environment where people can feel empowered to vocalize their concerns and feel heard. It is our goal to have support in place for the whole team as we navigate the “new normal” throughout the next months. Our commitment to staff empowerment and positive mental health works hand in hand with our commitment to the physical health and safety of our staff. The worldwide pandemic impacts both physical and psychological health as loneliness, worry, stress, and concern for the future are issues everyone is currently facing.
As we touched on briefly in the CFI’s Culture of Caring: Part 1, CFI enabled operations staff to perform their duties remotely where possible to reduce office population and increase the safety of those who perform essential onsite tasks. We moved the weekly CARE huddles into a virtual space via Zoom so that all workers have the ability to be present even if they’re not in the office. Each station alternates in hosting the meeting and employees from all other stations have the option to join.
Management has also been hosting Town Hall meetings in our Los Angeles office since the start of the pandemic to allow employees the opportunity to express any concerns they may have as a sort of open forum. Communication is key to maintaining an empowered team and we’re dedicated to routinely sending employee updates, status information, changes, and alerts so that everyone has the information they need and they aren’t left out of the loop. We ensure they have the latest in terms of our social distancing policies and COVID response plans.
One the hardest challenges during this pandemic from the perspective of mental health has been trying to keep our employee’s morale up and continuing to foster the principles that made CFI what it is today. We have all been in such an impossible situation and have tried to do the best we can to take care of our CFI family.
The world is still a long way from back to normal and there’s little doubt even our best laid plans will need to be adjusted, readjusted, and occasionally completely scrapped and reinvented; investing in a strong, informed staff of people who feel empowered, safe, and dedicated to being a significant link in the plan to securely respond to the COVID pandemic is a long-term strategy to continue building the greatest team in perishables shipping.
