#InThisTogether: 18 MAY 2020

With everything going on during the COVID-19 crisis, we wanted to share some of the stories about what Cook people are doing during this difficult time. All around the Cook world, we are #InThisTogether, and we would love to hear stories about how you and your coworkers are stepping up to make a difference. If you have a story to share, please email us at BlogEditor@CookMedical.com.

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New normal, new hope

By Joy Choi, the chief operating officer at Cook Medical Korea

COVID-19 has changed a lot the way we live our daily lives as well as the way we work. The outbreak in Korea started fairly early compared to other countries. The first case was confirmed on January 20, one day before the first case was announced in the United States.

Can you imagine how wide the spectrum of emotions we faced? At first, we were more like a spectator, waiting to see what would happen. After a month, we experienced feelings of fear, anxiety, and anger as the virus kept spreading around the nation. Now Koreans and Korean companies are transitioning towards longer-term “emergency management and new lifestyle” strategies to deal with the unpredictability and volatility of both our daily lives and the global market due to the coronavirus outbreak.

All schools have gone online. “Untact” is now new normal instead of “contact.”

Cook Medical Korea (CMK), located in Seoul, the capital of the country, also wanted to go with the new normal. After two to four weeks of a work-from-home environment, all employees came back to office as of April 6, even though Korea still had new cases of the virus. Of course we were worried, but we also realized that we cannot avoid a world with the virus, so we’d better adapt to the situation and learn how to live with it.

Making changes to make a difference

First of all, we have re-arranged work zone layout by keeping our physical distance at two meters (a little over six feet). We are fortunate that the Cook Korea office is a spacious 2,600 square meters (just under 28,000 square feet). That meant that each person working for a function has 80 square meters (just over 860 square feet). Plus, there are six meeting rooms of various sizes available for clinical division employees who are visiting the office. Physical distance is also maximized during lunch and at meetings.

It used to be very normal to jump into a packed elevator at the last second. Now we wait for one that has more space. Wearing masks is now considered very good etiquette when talking with someone. It doesn’t mean you are sick, but that you care about other people.

Surely, this has been a great opportunity to test a “digital transformation.” It can’t be as good as a face-to-face meeting in terms of catching the emotions of comments, but we still found that meetings via WebEx, and talking thru Webex Teams, are pretty convenient tools for work.

Our commute to and from work has had some changes. The typical work hour in Korea is 9:00 am to 6:00 pm followed by traffic hell. Now we have implemented flexible working hours, where employees and their managers decide when they can come and go, to help them avoid the busiest travel times.

Anyone who visited the CMK office would also notice the difference at our reception desk. Yes, new things include a disinfection certificate, a thermometer, and hand sanitizer. There is one more difference. We used to have flowers delivered on Mondays, but have now replaced them with an artificial one. It looks exactly the same—beautiful—but saves a little bit of money and lessens contact with people from outside of Cook.

The last new experience we have gone through is a remote audit. Our financial year-end audit was done remotely for the first time in order to minimize human contact. The results? It went well. We appreciate the finance team for their longer hours of service on communication with auditors remotely.

Cheering each other up

CMK has started an internal relay of cheering up messages for each other, which has been led by Yongkwan Kim, the Distribution Channel Management (DCM) manager. Here are some comments of the messages that have been shared:

“Good days will come – let’s keep our hopes and positive thinkings in us.” — Chang-Keun Lee, Critical Care territory sales manager (TSM)

“I came to the office and met functional colleagues, I had a feeling of delight in meeting colleagues which had not been that delightful before! It was a grateful time to realize the importance of our ordinary normal lives. By the way, after coughing, make sure there is no one behind you!” — Kwang-Seok Choe, Endoscopy TSM

“Schools and daycares are gone to online or closed. But working mums and dads are keeping their work alive. Thank you.” — Kelly Kim, Reproduction Health national sales manager, and Da-Jeong Jang, Customer Service associate

“Despite of physical distance, we are getting closer with empathy and sympathy sharing within us.” — Chang-Hyun Lee, Vascular TSM

“This will go away … and Corona can’t beat Korea, CMK fighting.” — picture, featured to the right, and writing by Ji-Hee Kim, Customer Service associate

Beautiful cherry blossoms are all around even though COVID-19 is still here. Eventually this will go, and thousands of splendid days and hopes will come again.

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