2020 was always going to be a memorable year for Metrus: the company was readying to double its workforce, refine its mission and values, launch a new product and undergo a rebrand. When the severity of the pandemic became apparent, the company quickly pivoted to working from home on March 9th and began to navigate a new normal that has now stretched past the one year mark. With the solemn marking of the one-year anniversary of the pandemic, the company reflected on what has been a challenging but also inspiring year.
Metrus’ leadership team knew they’d need to be flexible and adaptive as they managed the logistics of helping customers with operational projects around the country as well as advancing new projects. Some projects were in states with shelter-in-place orders, others had more building access and flexibility, but it differed state to state and by market sector.
According to Anastasia Beckett, SVP of Sales, Metrus was able to quickly pivot to remote work and maintain a high level of service for its customers. “Where site access was an issue to advance early-stage deals, we developed an analysis tool that enabled us to perform remote assessments and show customers what a project would look like for their facilities,” said Beckett. “This meant our customers could still advance their GHG reduction goals even during the pandemic.”
Metrus CEO Bob Hinkle’s overriding thought is one of “gratitude to the entire Metrus team for their positivity and camaraderie during such uncertain and hard times.” Hinkle acknowledges that in the spring last year some projects were at a standstill as customers worked through fundamental issues like how to safely conduct business and protect their employees. Over the summer, though, “customers began to figure out how to navigate the COVID world” and project activity began to rapidly accelerate.”
Despite the challenges and uncertainty, the company was able to maintain its pace of growth and development, which included adding new products, a rebrand, a new mission statement and a nearly 50% increase in its workforce. Vihann Kong is one of those new employees, joining Metrus in May as its Director of Sales based in New England, which means he’s never physically met anyone at the company. While that’s not exactly ideal, Kong says the on-boarding process was actually quite efficient.
“It was really easy, Kong said. “And it was actually much better than other experiences I’ve had when joining a new company.”
He met the team at one of the monthly (virtual) Town Halls early on and eventually was able to Zoom with everybody across the company. Kong was able to ramp up quickly with the help of Metrus Academy, a robust internal video library which has tutorials on everything a new employee would need to get up to speed. “All of these things, all done virtually, allowed me to jump right into projects without much delay,” said Kong.
For the past 12 months, we’ve all had to adapt to a new normal, changing how we do business in ways big and small. Some of these innovations have proven to be more effective than the old ways of doing things and will surely stick around.
“I see everything that we have had to do to accommodate this unprecedented time as a value” said Beckett. “We’ve had to work harder, and get more creative. We will certainly continue to utilize the tools and strategies that were developed in 2020.”