Jackson Meyer had just come to the close of a standout first year of business with his freight forwarding company Verus Global, generating AUD $26million in just 12 months of operation when the pandemic in China began to significantly hinder their ability to operate, long before Australia began to feel the large scale effects of Covid-19 in day to day life.
As a young CEO this became a steep learning curve for Meyer who not only managed to survive the hardship and obstacles of 2020, but doubled his turnover to AUD $52million.
He had to quickly shift gears and lead his global team through a worldwide pandemic, something he could not possibly have prepared for.
Twelve months later, Meyer has successfully led his team through a challenging year and has also managed to achieve AUD $72million in gross turnover to date.
It was undoubtedly a particularly challenging year for the freightling and logistics industry, below Jackson shares some of his key learnings:
People are the most important resource for any company
“We needed everyone in our team to come together to support each and solve problems together in many ways we could never have expected.”
“One of our key pillars at Verus Global has always been people first, but this was really put to the test in 2020. You need to be able to trust your team and in return they need to feel supported and empowered to do their work.”
Communication is key
“As a global company we had the benefit of being somewhat set up for remote work already, key things like video calls, phone meetings and streamlined communication to teams in different countries and time zones were already a part of our working life.”
“However, the shift to all being at home was a significant and rapid shift, and finding ways for the team to connect in ways that would normally be incidental now became an imperative for supporting staff wellbeing and mental health.”
Recognise that working from home is not simply a transplant of office life into a home setting
“The flow of an office is something we all took for granted but finding ways for work to flow from managers to staff in an efficient and effective way needs specific attention.”
“Where conversations across a desk or a coffee can no longer happen there needs to be a shift in project management to help everyone understand what their responsibilities are and how that fits into the greater team or company objectives.”
The future of work life is changing but a balance needs to be found
“We could never have prepared for such a sudden shift in how the workforce functions but now we need to determine what parts of working from home help increase productivity.”
“How can we support our staff in getting back into the office if there are parts of that working style that actually improves morale and productivity. I predict the combination of the two will be key for our team’s future success.”
