If we think back to before Covid-19, when we worked at Carnival House, the way we worked was very different. We would book a meeting room to get people together to discuss key concerns, some people may have dialled into the meeting remotely using the spider phones through tele-conferencing. We could hold a TV conference call with someone in another operating company. The majority of us worked inside Carnival House with opportunities to swing by someone’s desk, chat by the water cooler or in passing around the building.
When we started working from home, Technology set up Zoom and Box to allow us to work flexibly. We’ve experienced more than a year of working from home. We haven’t had to book meeting rooms. We’ve had zero commute (being able to work within our homes). We’ve been able to Zoom our colleagues at the click of a mouse. Seeing them face to face, or talking on Zoom chat, Sametime or on the phone. We’ve been able to share documents via Box as well as on screen and work flexibly.
It makes sense that we re-visit the Technology we have in place in Carnival House and update it to support an experience similar to what we have been accustomed to whilst working from home.
Preparation
Technology has entered a period of evolution with new ways of working. We are also reverting from being in lay up to needing to fulfil our normal operational obligations. Like most of us we will need to test, fail, learn and improve as we go. Much of the collaborative technology is new and it will take time for the providers to adapt to customer need and evolve the products and technologies. There’s no question that our ways of working will evolve and that what hybrid working looks like for us today while we’re still facing Covid restraints, won’t be where we’ll eventually end up.
What has been done so far?
WiFI
Over the last two weeks the Technology team have identified and implemented a number of improvements with the way Zoom, Teams and other video conferencing tools operate on the Carnival House WiFi. While this has made a noticeable improvement, we can still see ‘dropouts’ from Zoom and Teams meetings on an infrequent basis.
Zoom Rooms
We are going to be trialling new systems to support the business and along the way we’ll learn what works as well as what doesn’t. Please rest assured the technology team is committed to providing you with technology that supports your needs but please be patient and work with us as we tune and fine tune the environment to suit our growing numbers as we return to Carnival House. Currently Quebec, Rotterdam and the boardroom are fitted with Zoom with more rooms scheduled over the next 2-3 weeks. We will advise as more Zoom Rooms become available.
This is new technology and we are testing equipment from a variety of manufacturers in order that we get the best. So please help us to understand what works best for you as we learn and experiment by providing us with your feedback as you start to use the various pieces of equipment. Working together we’ll identify what we’d like to use in the future and make sure the experience, alongside our investment in Microsoft 365, benefits all of us.
What you can do to help
- Please let us know if you are experiencing any issues with your IT setup – whether from the office or from home by logging an incident here. If it is urgent, please call our IT Service Desk on 02380 656000.
- There are members of the technology team on site to assist at Carnival House. If you are in the office and experiencing an issue, or have important meetings onsite, please let the IT Service Desk know by calling 02380 656000 and we’ll be able to help with any setup questions you might have.
We’re really looking forward to coming back to the office and rebuilding the buzz we’ve known and loved, connecting with our brands and our purpose once again.