How Isabel Group reacted to the corona lockdown in Belgium

On Friday March 13, Isabel Group and many other organizations in Belgium were instructed to send their employees home due to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It was an unprecedented exercise which launched business owners and management all over the country into a period of crisis mode and general uncertainty about the future for their businesses.

During the lockdown, I had an interview with our CEO Jean de Crane about the steps we took as an organization to ensure the continuity of our business. Moreover, we took to it that not only our customers could proceed with their financial transactions and administration with the level of quality they are used to, we also kept a close eye to the wellbeing of our co-workers.

In this first part, we dive into the impact the lockdown had on our employees and how we switched, overnight, to a full remote working schedule for our 300+ co-workers:

Internal survey fed the deconfinement plan

In less than 24 hours, the internal survey achieved a participation rate of 86% throughout the organization. It showed that more than 30% of the respondents experienced social isolation to be the biggest challenge during the lockdown. About 30% of them also wanted to return to one of our three offices in Brussels, Leuven and Antwerp. A specialized Business Continuity Team took this to heart and worked out a safe deconfinement plan.

Now, three months after the start of the lockdown in Belgium with homeworking still being the norm, co-workers who want to return are welcomed at our offices in a safe way. Instructions and general information on deconfinement is centralized in one online environment which is frequently being updated via self-made videos and webinars. Proud to share that our Isabel Group co-workers rated us as “Great” on the NPS scale for our efforts during these special times.

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