Now, more than ever, ensuring our teams are staying in touch and up to date is crucial to our success at JustPark.
Since the first lockdown in March, our Commercial team have been holding weekly team calls to help them do just that. We've been speaking to Hannah Fuller, Head of Parking Partnerships at JustPark to learn more.
Where did the idea come from to set up a weekly call for the Commercial team?
At the start of lockdown part 1, we wanted a fun way to keep in touch. We had a lot of teams coming together as part of the creation of a new department - Commercial - so we needed to get to know each other
We also had a few new starters, and we all need to keep up to date with what's going on in our industry as well so it's a great way of bringing the team up to speed with the world of parking and our clients.
What's the format of the calls?
We were already having daily calls to keep in touch with the team so we converted one of them into a weekly quiz, hosted by a different member of the team each week. Each quiz takes on a little bit of the host's personality. We've had best & worst car parks, images, logos, parking rules, cocktails to accompany the quiz and somehow Dan [Laskey, one of our BDMs] managed to incorporate his stamp collection. We even invited our Anthony, our CEO in one week as guest host.
It was really important that we kept it interactive and fun, so we put in 30 minutes on google meet and made it optional. Most weeks we had a full house, people shouted out the answers - we are a competitive bunch so it was quite noisy sometimes.
What's been the response from the team?
The original idea came from a quickfire quiz that I have run before and then everyone had a bit of input and it evolved into something that we all created.
The team took the concept and made it what it is - it's fun, informal but a great way to catch up. We've added in our new fave game drawasaurus as another option if we're short on a quizmaster too.
You joined JustPark in March, how have you found your first 9 months?
I had 2 full days in the office before JustPark took the decision to ask us all to work from home so it was a rather strange start. No one was prepared for the pandemic, so I was really grateful for the support from my team members who took the time to teach me the systems and how the different teams work together all via Zoom. There were some real superstars who helped me get stuck in and made the first few weeks easier than expected.
There are lots of things about JustPark that make it easy to get up to date, from the weekly All Hands presentations updating the entire business on departmental and product updates, to the more informal birthday singalongs and ParkDay speeches every Thursday. During lockdown, the team quizzes, book club and additional catch-ups that the People team coordinated meant that I got to know the wider team and it was easy to make proper introductions when we were allowed back into the office before lockdown part 2.
What's the future for the Commercial team call?
Going into lockdown part 2 has felt easier and harder for everyone, but I can't see us changing things like our weekly quiz - that's here to stay!
