One Year of WFH: Lucid's Success is Tied to Our Employee's Success

In 2017, Robert Kelly became a viral internet star when his children barged into his office during a live BBC interview from his home. This moment, given the moniker “BBC Dad,” seemed to foreshadow the “Work From Home” facelift that many companies would experience within a few years. In 2017, we found it endearing. In 2021, we find it relatable. 

Karl Sun, CEO and co-founder of Lucid, shared on Forbes, “The workplace is shifting, and it's changing at an extremely rapid rate. The natural consequence is that workers must adapt to meet those changes – and they can’t do it alone…There is this inherent responsibility for us to create platforms and tools that will help employees succeed despite the unavoidable changes swirling around them.” This past year, businesses have taken the lead in providing the necessary resources for teams to connect and collaborate, leading to some surprising benefits during the remote work environment.

While some predicted that the pandemic would only hurt businesses, the transition to working from home has brought its own benefits. The at-home office dynamic has eliminated long commutes, opened up time for exercise, and allowed people to get good use out of their loungewear like sweatpants (or no pants - thanks to the small Zoom frame). Countless businesses have found unique ways to address the challenges of the past year, including Lucid. Let's take a look at how Lucid approached these unprecedented times through a laser focus on our core values.

Teamwork over Ego

One of the biggest difficulties of a work-from-home situation is the minimized social interaction among coworkers. Lucid found several ways to conquer this challenge. Unique team and company activities ranged from virtual gatherings such as trivia nights and cocktail nights to weekly meditation classes. Recently, Lucid even offered a magic show, put on by Geffen Playhouse. While people weren’t able to attend in person, there was a sense of community and excitement as the magician performed seemingly impossible acts that, surprisingly enough, still felt incredibly thrilling over Zoom.

While these get-togethers created a fun environment, there was also the need to build a strong sense of team cohesion and collaboration throughout the day-to-day work environment. 

Importantly, because all of our communication is virtual, Lucid encourages employees to always give the benefit of the doubt and express gratitude often. One tactic Karl encourages is “avoiding blanket statements when expressing gratitude. Say thank you for something specific.” 

Individual Empowerment

The New York Times interviewed Nathan Schultz, a senior executive at Chegg, about productivity during the pandemic. He shared that his first impulse was to virtually micromanage his employees, which is exactly what he did. However, when he finally allowed his employees more autonomy, Chegg found that productivity increased and employees began completing projects ahead of schedule. Lucid has always valued this kind of individual empowerment, recognizing the value of building trust with employees and allowing them to flourish in their roles. Encouraging individual ownership has led to some of Lucid's most valuable innovations, including new products.

Lucid has found the key to driving individual empowerment, initiative, and ownership is by encouraging a healthy work-life balance from the top-down. Here are a few examples of what Lucid has done this year:

• Recognizing the toll the switch to remote work had on employees, Lucid began offering free mental health benefits through Tava Health for employees and their dependents. 
• The Lucid Learning team offered several coaching sessions to all employees focused on facing the difficulties of working from home with kids.
• Lucid provided a $500 stipend to offset the costs of home office equipment. 

Innovation

Lucid’s visual collaboration suite helps teams see and build the future, including our own employees. During the first few months of remote work, the entire company came together to launch Lucidspark, a digital whiteboard intended to enhance collaboration and creativity . Teams can utilize both Lucidspark and Lucidchart to move ideas into action plans within existing workflows. This continued pattern of innovation has set Lucid apart as the leading visual collaboration provider in truly supporting teams at Lucid and across the entire workforce working from home. 

In the previously mentioned Forbes article, Karl emphasized the importance of “ meeting the modern worker’s need for greater productivity and fueling greater creativity and innovation.” Lucid’s efforts towards these goals have strengthened the culture, core values, and allowed employees to be truly successful during a worldwide pandemic. He summed it up when he said, “By focusing our efforts on these fundamentals, we can truly help workers thrive in what is clearly the future of work.”