As the holiday season approaches and we prepare for a new year, we here at Kennedy Services can’t help but reflect on the many reasons we have to be thankful. Like you, 2020 presented many challenges to us as individuals and as a company. If nothing else, this pandemic has served as a pointed reminder of the power of teamwork, community, and above all else, being positive.
When Governor Hogan declared a shelter in place order, Kennedy Services, like so many other businesses, scrambled to set up virtual workplaces outside of our brick and mortar Baltimore headquarters. This was both challenging and time-consuming. That, coupled with the daily disappointments as client after client was forced to shut their doors and furlough workers, was devastating. As the “personal personnel people,” this hit us extremely hard. After all, these are our employees, part of our Kennedy family, but without available work at our client partners’ job sites, we could not keep them working. When the dust finally settled, over sixty percent of our external workforce had been displaced.
Needless to say, our recruiting team worked day and night to find other employment opportunities for our people. Still, the fear and uncertainty surrounding the Novel Coronavirus created hesitancy among employers in hiring new staff. And who could blame them? But, with so many employees counting on us, we just had to find a way forward.
Looking back, it’s a truly inspirational story and one that I’ll be telling for years to come. By keeping it simple and relying on our core values (appreciation, excellence, inspiration, perseverance, respect, and teamwork), we managed to make lemonade out of lemons. In particular, we owe much of our success to the simplest of our values, “perseverance.” Early on, we realized that if we wanted to get people back to work, we would have to find a new way of working. Not to say there weren’t many days when the “No’s” were so overwhelming that we wanted to throw in the towel. But that’s not our way. Instead, through our team’s unwavering perseverance, we simply outworked our competition and this pandemic. It sounds so simple but believe me; it was anything but. After day after day of hearing rejections and “No’s,” the “Yes’s” started trickling in. Albeit painfully slow, here we are just eight months later, and back to 100%. Simply put, that one core value enabled us to weather the storm while still providing uncompromising quality and service.
And so, we have a lot to be thankful for this year. We have not only identified opportunities for our furloughed employees but have found work for an abundance of other displaced workers in our community. We employ more people now than we did before the pandemic. That is because of the great companies who align with our company’s values and choose Kennedy as their staffing partner. We know we are not out of the woods yet, and there is still a lot to overcome, but we know we have what it takes to service our clients and our employees, through thick and thin! And for this, we are filled with gratitude because we could not do this without you.
Matt Sarant is a proud member of the Kennedy Services family. Kennedy Services would like to wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season.