HFS Highlight: CSS Corp moves 100% of staff to work from home

These days, it seems odd to discuss remote working as some form of alien working environment. Business across the globe have decamped staff from offices to remote operations in a bid to protect the welfare of staff as the global Covid-19 pandemic continues. However, even with intentions to shift as many employees to remote environments as possible, not all of the major service providers have been able to – either because of local infrastructure issues, technology provision or even contractual stipulations. CSS Corp, however, successfully decamped 100% of its team to productive work-from-home environments in a very short time frame. 

According to executives at the firm, the feat of moving over 7000 professionals distributed in offices across the globe to decentralized, remote working environments was no simple achievement. The firm tackled a raft of challenges ranging from lobbying partners in the telecoms sector to secure high-demand technology solutions such as hotspots to enable staff in areas with limited infrastructure to remain connected. Indeed, some of the biggest challenges faced by the firm were the ‘last mile’ logistics – in so much as distribution companies were able to deliver laptops and other resources to central locations but struggled to then courier equipment to the homes of professionals safely and securely. To tackle this challenge, CSS Corp invested in its own fleet of vehicles to handle the final link in the chain and ensure staff has the resources they needed to continue delivering uninterrupted services to clients. 

The whole process was driven by a guiding philosophy CSS title the RESILIENCE framework, which helped ensure the firm tackled the challenge of migrating to a remote working model holistically.  

R – Real Estate and Facilities Management,  

E – Employee Enablement,  

S – Support Functions Alignment,  

I – IT connectivity and collaboration,  

L – Legal & Compliance Monitoring,  

I – Information and Physical Security,  

E – Emotional wellbeing,  

N – Numbers and Dashboards,  

C – Communication and customer engagement  

E – Emergency Response and SLA Monitoring 

BCP plans are only as good as the client services they support 

It’s the reliability and stability the firm offered to clients which is the most welcome part of the CSS Corp story. According to public testimonials, the firm’s speedy response to Covid-19 and by extension, their ability to continue delivering services to clients helped the CSS stand out as a true partner. A Large UCaaS client advised “[CSS Corp] has done a Rock Star job during these challenging times. Your operations team are superstars. The turn-around time in getting ready to work from home and give us business continuity is best in class.” 

Overall, CSS Corp’s clients have rated the firms BCP planning and execution highly. Another client, a Big 5 Networking Company, asked the leadership team to “please convey our high regards to all those who worked sleeplessly to get this BCP in place for us, especially Ops managers and IT teams. We truly appreciate it.”  

The firm’s focus on staff wellbeing also shines through – with executives from the firm advising they ran payroll early in the most uncertain period to reassure staff that they could expect a degree of financial stability in an otherwise tumultuous period both personally and professionally. To steer this employee-centric approach, CSS adopted another framework, CHEER (Communication with employees, Highlighting of accomplishments, Energize teams, Engagement with employees, and Recognition of achievements) to provide managers and leaders with the tools and guidance necessary to focus and prioritize the wellbeing of their teams.  

The firm also announced this month that it would bolster staff salaries across over 7000 roles and continue on its plan to hire 1000 more professionals. Setting the firm apart from some of its larger competitors who have frozen hiring and put pay hikes and promotions on hold. 

Bottom Line: CSS Corps quick response to Covid-19 has reassured clients and staff alike that the firm has a handle on unprecedented uncertainty 

While moving to work from home environments now is somewhat undifferentiated, the speed and approaches adopted by CSS Corp are. As a multitude of customer testimonials indicate, the firm was able to rapidly evolve BCP plans to meet the changing business environment presented of the Covid-19 pandemic and ensure staff wellbeing and service delivery remained a priority.