How Gaming Companies Help Their Employees during Self—isolation - Issue 2

We learned how during coronavirus and self-isolation, gaming companies help their employees. In the second issue, our questions were answered by representatives of Kefir, Game Insight, Azur Games and Crazy Panda.

The material was prepared jointly with Talents In Games, a specialist search platform and a recruitment agency.

Maria Pestrikova, Managing Partner of Kefir

For security reasons, we went to quarantine before everyone else, so some processes have already been put on track.

1. The first thing we did, of course, was to equip people with jobs at home. We bought everything necessary for full technical equipment.

2. We interviewed the children and their families for financial assistance — many of our relatives and friends got into difficult situations because of the pandemic. In addition to our loved ones, some state hospitals also received help.

3. In April, we made a personal bunker in the city: we bought provisions, medicines and other necessities for the family of each team member. This is not following panic — rather, our boundless love and solid expertise in the survival genre.

4. Since we have built our own diagnostic clinic, we were able to quickly organize online consultations with the entire staff of doctors in it. Now is not the best time to walk around hospitals, so it is better to discuss most of the issues with doctors virtually.

5. Quarantine left the team without gyms, so we transferred this to the network. The guys are engaged in Zoom with a coach — individually, with family members or in pairs. Personal videos are also available to employees, which were thought out and recorded by our coach, taking into account the wishes of the guys.

6. Children were not left behind either: we continue to develop and supplement activities for the youngest — from author’s coloring books on our games to full-fledged training.

7. By the way, we are building a real cocktail bar, which will open very soon. Only our guys and people close to them will have access to it. Therefore, it would be a sin not to create an online preview bar. Now almost every Friday we have a broadcast from our favorite establishments with our presenters, from several cameras, with a director’s console — everything is serious, like in television broadcasts.

8. All these online events, of course, do not go idle – for each event, packs with everything necessary are delivered to people home contactless (with sports equipment, sweets from the office, and most importantly — Friday sets that will help you prepare a cocktail yourself according to the instructions of the presenter or brighten up the viewing of the broadcast with unusual beer, wine and cheeses).

9. As for gaming events — they did not stop, only increased three times in volume. In addition to raids, we now also stream, learning new games together, and sometimes arrange closed poker tournaments. Therefore, to be honest, there is nothing to share about the problems in self—isolation.

Danila Bychkov, Head of HR at Game Insight

We reacted very quickly to the current situation and during the first two weeks of quarantine we were able to do a lot for a comfortable transfer of teams.

1. Planning and implementation

We started transferring people to WFH (work from home) on March 16. Prior to the launch, we carefully rewrote the basic guide so that it was as suitable as possible for all teams and was applicable to various workflows. Together with Hyde, we tested equipment / loads / everything that could reduce the speed of working with heavy assets, which means it could affect the result.

Now the whole team works as a single organism, producing stable results, correcting mistakes and easily picking up everything that burns.

2. Organization of workplaces and all necessary support

The IT team did a great job in the shortest possible time to find the right solutions and provide technical equipment to all employees, regardless of their location. The AHO team (administrative and economic department) has completed the workplaces with desks, comfortable work chairs and other small things that allow you to equip a home office.

Logistics, setup, working with bugs — everything worked like clockwork in almost a couple of weeks.

Along with this, the main flow has not gone anywhere: the release of updates, support for players, following the pipelines. However, as part of the changes, it was not easy to maintain morale and not slow down.

3. Feedback and moral support

The anxiety common to all did not pass by. The situation required us to constantly support teams, make official statements, work with leads and HR.

The general atmosphere and the desire to review internal processes led to the decision to launch an organic review of what is happening, rethink the pipelines, as well as update the backlog. Previously postponed initiatives have become relevant, in demand and at the same time required attention and energy.

The fighting spirit and good condition of the teams have always been a priority for us. Therefore, as an experiment, we insisted on a mandatory paid day-off every 2 weeks (in addition to traditional weekends and holidays, of course). We are satisfied with the result, and on May 10 Google announced a similar initiative.

4. Own online conference, which was held 6 weeks after the activation of the WFH mode

It seems we have done the impossible: we held an internal conference for many hours, assembled from scratch.

Thanks to the event, we were able to tell internal teams about what is happening in Game Insight (and the industry), announce new initiatives, hold sessions and round tables about development, analytics and design. Some reports are available on our Facebook page (GoGameInsight).

5. Development

Now we are in the prototyping stage of various software and hard practices aimed at the integrated development of team members.

Big changes await our onboarding program, referral program and internal hiring, as well as our GI Academy initiative (the so-called set of our educational programs).

Since the beginning of WFH, we have already hired 25 people, and we do not plan to stop yet.

From an interesting observation: it was in the WFH mode that former employees began to actively return to us.

6. Thematic channels, fan content, online clubs

The internal communications team, with the support of other employees, is actively prototyping leisure options: quizzes, online parties, online smoking rooms, thematic chats, Friday standups, calendars of external events and broadcasts, divided into categories (culture, music, sports and even a children’s calendar), digests telling about interesting events of this weekend.

During the first week of WFH, we have put together a whole portal where you can find and try all of the above. Before WFH, we paid a lot of attention to the birthdays of our games (gifts, themed event parties), now we are experimenting with new formats.

Trying to compensate for the lack of socialization, we try to use applications like Donut, giving the opportunity to have coffee with a random colleague and chat. We also previously had book clubs, wine clubs, mafia clubs, etc. All this remained, but went online.

Polina Talyzina, leading recruiter at Azur Games

Support of employees in conditions of self—isolation is one of the key conditions for maintaining a comfortable workflow. In addition to the obvious preservation of the full salary and social package of employees, our team has implemented a number of initiatives that have helped improve communication and make working from home as pleasant as in the office.

1. A familiar workplace in your own apartment

Within three days, we were able to completely switch the office to remote mode. The IT department promptly reacted to the situation, connected the necessary services that allowed employees to function normally without any technical difficulties. In addition to the delivery of working equipment and daily technical support, we also took care of the comfort: office furniture (chairs, tables, printers, etc.) was delivered to everyone, because the workplace should be really comfortable.

2. The opportunity to be creative in entertaining online contests

The competition for the “Ideal workplace in a Home office environment” showed that there are no limits to the creativity of our colleagues. The winner was chosen by the whole company by voting, and a separate prize was also awarded for the “most adapted workplace” (9 screens in one frame, it had to be seen)!

3. Health care — regular classes with a professional trainer

In recent months, each of us has felt how difficult it is to take the cherished 10,000 steps while being in our own apartment. But we were able to find a way out: we organized morning and evening online trainings, which are conducted by a master of sports with in-depth medical training (health care should be professional).

4. Live communication during online events

We are happy to experiment with the formats of online events for our employees: we organize fascinating quizzes on various topics, prepare a detective quest with interactive adventures, and also give new life to traditional office events with the help of our informal server on Discord. And, of course, do not forget about gifts for prizes!

5. Educational webinar with a psychologist

We have tried to turn the period of self-isolation into a time of new opportunities for our employees. In addition to English classes and regular collections of useful links to self-education services, we organized a webinar with a psychologist. It was an interesting practice that gave colleagues a chance to reflect on the topic of isolation and take note of useful tips on interacting with others during this difficult time.

Ksenia Semenkova, Head of HR at Crazy Panda

We started letting those who wanted to switch to remote work go home in mid-March, and in the 20th of March, the whole Crazy Panda switched to the format of working from home. Under the circumstances , the company ‘s management faced the following tasks:

• make it as easy as possible for employees to switch from office work to remote work;
• to help develop remote work skills for those who have not had such experience before;
• to support involvement in the life of the company;
• do not let any aspect of working in Crazy Panda sink — neither work efficiency, nor corporate activities.

What did we do for this:

1. Helped as much as they could with moving home from the office

We helped to transport home computers, monitors, tablets, and in some cases even office furniture, without which it will not be possible to work in comfort at home.

2. Conducted many different surveys

We talked a lot with employees, asked about problems and needs, drew conclusions and launched new useful services.

3. Launched a new information section “Bulletin of the isolate”

We gathered there all the basic information that can be useful now: useful tools for remote work, notes and notes of trainings about remote work and working with stress, a list of online stores where you can order food and pharmacy products, as well as instructions on how to:

• how to get a street pass;
• how to be treated with and without CHI;
• how and where to get psychological help;
• how to do exercises for those who have been sitting at the computer;
• where to go to study online for a fee and for free;
• lists with online entertainment, concerts, museums, etc.

And, of course, we moved our work radio, which usually plays in the office, online.

4. Moved to online English and sports

Regular office activities — English classes and morning sports — immediately moved to Zoom and in the first week gathered an even larger audience online than offline before. As a result, we had to increase the number of classes and groups. Now Carzy Panda does sports as much as 6 times a week!

5. Launched “Good News”

We had two problems: a negative information background, which greatly spoiled the mood of many colleagues, and emotional isolation from the company, because now it was “not to touch”.

Therefore, we have launched a new project codenamed “Good News”. These are weekly video releases of good news from employees (for example, someone ran a marathon around the apartment, a snake gave birth to one of our colleagues during quarantine, some pandas even hold their online concerts), interviews with guys about updates in projects, news about the company’s successes from the CEO, and the like.

We make them in a fun and a little crazy style to maintain the image.

6. Sent out a “quarantine kit”

At the beginning of April in Moscow, and throughout Russia, it was very difficult (and expensive) to find personal protective equipment. As a company, it was much easier for us to purchase large batches, so in April we sent quarantine kits to all employees, including colleagues from other countries (a pack with a respirator, gloves, antiseptic and a chocolate bar to raise morale).

7. Filmed the video “Harmful tips on the remote”

We recorded an interview with our experienced remote workers with harmful (and not very) tips on how to still work from home and not go crazy. The guys debunked and confirmed the myths about remote work, shared their experience of organizing a working day and space, ways to calm a neighbor with a puncher, told how to strengthen the advantages of remote work and smooth out the disadvantages. Well, all this is in the setting of “Star Wars” and with the display of pets.

8. Organized cyber tournaments

We collected wishes from employees and launched cyber tournaments for several games at once — StarCraft, HoMM, Overwatch, Dota and Quake.

We found commentators among enthusiastic employees within the company, we stream tournaments on the corporate youtube channel, and we tell the intermediate and final results in the “Good News”. And, of course, all participants receive memorable prizes.

9. Moved the events online

Panda is firmly entrenched in Zoom — there are Friday gatherings, and collective games, such as “Hats” (and, of course, board games!), and recently we even held a wine tasting.

It turned out so cool that they posted a post on Pandovsky Instagram with a memorable chronicle.

The birthdays of two of our projects are right on the nose, which, of course, will also be held online. And the Mafia!

Also on the topic:

• “Hunting is not working now”: Marina Lopatina from Talents In Games about the personnel market during the quarantine period
• How Gaming Companies Help Their Employees during Self—isolation – Issue 1