Since our inception in 1999, PC Matic has been a work from home company. This comes with many advantages such as having the flexibility to make your own schedule and enjoying a greater work-life balance.
Many employees at PC Matic juggle their full-time responsibilities at the company while also keeping their children at home to avoid the skyrocketing costs of daycare. Some have homeschooled their children, and amidst the pandemic, in many cases, PC Matic employees were able to adjust to the demands of their children’s virtual learning requirements more easily.
For others, the flexibility of working from home has afforded them the ability to be present for parents who have needed assistance with medical care, or in the instance where they, themselves, needed to focus a bit more on their health, the flexibility of working from home made life just a bit easier.
Working from home unquestionably has many benefits but it also has a few disadvantages. Most prominently mentioned – the lack of interaction with co-workers and the lack of comradery.
Despite virtual tools such as Zoom, Go-To-Meeting, and Slack, that allow our employees to interact just as they would in person, PC Matic has found over the years that being together in person always seems to bring about a different type of energy.
As a result, since 2006, PC Matic and all its employees have gathered together for bi-annual company meetings where good food, big ideas, and fellowship have been shared for just over 15 years.
What We Do During “Normal Business Hours:”
When I joined the company in 2019, my very first day happened to be just as the company was gathering for its Spring all-staff meeting. Taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina, I have to admit that I was just a bit overwhelmed to be starting a new job during the middle of the company’s bi-annual all-hands meeting.
But, in all actuality, joining a work-from-home company was new for me and having my first week coincide with this bi-annual meeting couldn’t have been a better way to start my time here at PC Matic.
The meetings bring together employees from all over the continental U.S. for several days of presentations from company leadership, breakout sessions with colleagues, and time for team bonding. Leadership takes questions from employees who may not have the opportunity to regularly talk with members of leadership, and we hear updates on the company’s product development roadmap and financial performance.
These are important and very helpful insights for employees, but, to be very honest, the most important moments take place after the presentations are done for the day and regular “work hours” are over.
The Most Important Moments Take Place After “Normal Business Hours:”
After we break for the day, employees are randomly paired with five or six other employees from the company to have dinner with. Sometimes these employees are from the team you work with every day, but oftentimes, marketing employees end up having dinner with malware researchers and software developers end up dining with members of the accounting team. Talk about interesting conversations!
During my first meeting, I’ll have to admit I didn’t understand why we all split up in the evenings. But, after my first meeting was behind me, I realized just how valuable these dinners are to both one’s professional success and the company’s overall growth and performance.
Aside from everything we learn about one another’s work, these dinners, and the time we spend together, whether it be at a steakhouse (everyone always seems to choose Hall’s Chophouse for some reason), or at a craft brewery, we learn about one another’s families and what’s going on in each other’s personal lives.
This is where comradery is built. This is where friendships and professional relationships are built. Sure, Zoom and Slack are great, but nothing beats employees having dinner together face-to-face and playing corn hole or life-sized tic-tac-toe at a craft brewery.
The Big Picture
At the end of the day, the updates we hear from leadership are certainly important. But, in all reality, these meetings that take place once in the spring and once in the fall are important mostly because of the face-to-face interaction we get with one another. They give us a chance to bond in person and to build that sense of comradery that is admittedly harder to establish in a virtual environment.
These meetings are where friendships grow. These meetings are where our trust grows. And, this is where we collectively grow together as one PC Matic as we continue to make the cyber-world a safer place for all who entrust their security in us.
