How Remote Working Has Created New Strategic Partnerships

Victoria Thomas is a marketing professional providing social media content as the marketing coordinator for Peak Performance.

Governor Bill Lee Issues Executive Orders Impacting Business

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed Executive Order No. 59 to extend certain, targeted provisions of Executive Order Nos. 36, 38, 49, 50, 54, and 55 through September 30, 2020 to facilitate the continued treatment and containment of COVID-19 through regulatory flexibility, promoting social distancing and wearing face coverings in public places, and protecting vulnerable populations. Increasing opportunities to work remotely where appropriate is one of the provisions.

For many businesses working from home has been a new frontier to conquer. It certainly has its personal benefits, the morning commute isn’t bad, the money I am saving on shoes has been repurposed to buy more yoga pants and my craving for real-life personal interaction has prompted a new friendship as I am now on a first-name basis with my mail carrier. But from a business perspective, the jury is still out. Are employees who work from home happier and more productive? How are they overcoming the challenges of working as a team? Are the business relationships being forged and nurtured as well as they had previously?

Pioneering new ways to cultivate business relationships and partnerships has become a colossal focus since COVID-19 and the subsequent stay at home orders. Companies, such as Peak Performance, whose business was dependent on in-person, instructor-led training, and industry events have had to innovate new ways of doing business. In order for business and industry to come back stronger than ever, they have to tackle Covid-19 head-on. And win. Any business that can endure a pandemic and go from “surviving to thriving” must be agile and collaborative in the process.

For Peak Performance, it was no different. “How do we teach hands-on classes, remotely?”, “How are workers going to learn and practice skills sitting behind a computer screen?” and “How can we leverage partnerships to help our business flourish”, were some of the questions that ripped through our heads as we realized all of our in-person events were being canceled or postponed. Once we realized that 2020 was the year of transition, we understood what we had to do next. We charged ahead with one main focus in our mind, "How can we make workplaces better and ensure businesses and their employees are equipped to successfully operate in these unprecedented times?"

Partnerships, partnerships, partnerships.

It wasn't easy, but we did it. We successfully transitioned our training platform to an on-line, cloud-based learning management system called the PEAK Learning Center. It took teamwork and true grit to get it done - all while safely social distancing, working from our homes. We combined our core business strength; workforce training by seasoned instructors, and seized the opportunity to provide a Healthy Business Series to employers and their employees. We leveraged our existing partnership with the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and developed new partnerships with the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA) and the California Manufacturers & Technology Association (CMTA) offering both a healthy business workplace certification training for employers and an individual employee training certification teaching best practices on how to operate safely during a pandemic ensuring everyone feels safe, healthy and confident about the workplace. Recently, we welcomed the Tennessee Small Business Development Centers into our partnerships and offer these courses with a scholarship for qualified small businesses.

As we continued to understand how this pandemic was rapidly transforming businesses and their responses to an array of health and economic challenges, we were able to come together with The Transition Team and form a partnership to help businesses fully understand how to use the right tools, strategies, and people to deliver significant results allowing them to achieve complete effectiveness and efficiencies throughout their organization. This partnership also allowed both parties to address challenges such as the aging workforce and new workers needing to be recruited and trained, the re-skilling of workers as technology is transforming their jobs, and handling the economic impact and right-sizing of organizations. Our partnership with The Transition Team has been able to provide a complimentary service by adding Career Management Services to our portfolio of Training and Development.

These partnerships have been vital to our journey from surviving to thriving. Has your business evolved the way that you build relationships? Join us on Friday, September 25th for this year's Peak Performance Symposium. Over the last 5 years, this in-person forum has been an excellent event for businesses to connect with other industries, create new partnerships, share best practices, and solve business needs together. This year's theme is appropriately titled Transitioning through Challenges in Trade, Technology, and Talent and will be completely virtual. Be sure to register in time to receive one of our Peak Collection conference boxes. We hope to partner with you there.