Covid-19 remote team management made easy with IDAHO software
5th June 2020
Two years ago, we started using IDAHO as our workflow software solution to track where each piece of expert content is as it bounces between lawyers, marketing staff, authors, editors, designers and external media. Our motivation in developing this bespoke software had been to manage quality control and the approvals process, which often involves a few layers in a large law firm. However, the software has really paid for itself during the coronavirus, when the team had to move to remote working.
Team management wasn’t previously an issue as we are a small team and saw each other on a daily basis, passing work to each other face to face. That all changed with Covid-19.
Grabbing our computers and heading for home, once we had got the IT plugged in and Zoom upgraded it was back to work – but not as usual! As a couple of clients pressed the pause button on their contracts, it was necessary for one person to go on furlough.
One of the great things about IDAHO is that it is very easy to reallocate work to other team members when someone goes on holiday or has a lengthy illness – and so this was easy to do for the person going on furlough. This meant that we could be sure that no work was ‘lost’ and that client satisfaction might not suffer as a result.
We have always worked with a large cohort of freelancers, including designers, authors, proof-readers and used IDAHO to monitor who has a piece of work, how long they have had it and if a deadline is looming. IDAHO provides us with a bird’s eye view of all this from the perspective of air traffic control.
We had tried team collaboration software, such as Slack and Trello, but found that this often failed if a single team member was not engaged – which was often the case with lawyers who might be busy in court. Having a centralised ‘control system’ means that information is not slowed down one busy person.
“IDAHO has been a really worthwhile investment,” said managing director, Sue Bramall. “We loved working with it before, but it has really proven its worth during the coronavirus.”Back to Blog