Although the period during the Covid-19 pandemic has been called the Great Resignation, a more accurate description would be the Great Exploration, as employees and employers reevaluate the nature of work. “At Zensar,” said Shahina Islam, VP of HR for the tech company, “there were challenges, especially with onboarding new employees, but we were able to take advantage of technology and adjust the culture. There were huge growing pains, but eventually we landed on fully remote/camera on during meetings.”

Zensar is a software company, so it’s not surprising that they leaned into technology solutions. “There was a huge amount of change management that had to be done, but more so to manage customer expectations,” said Islam, speaking at From Day One’s Boston conference in a panel discussion on “Making Work Meaningful in an Uncertain World.”

Not so for the health care industry.

“We had physicians and nurses who were working on site all during the pandemic,” said Dionne Wright Poulton, chief diversity officer at Care New England Health System in Providence. “I worked remotely on some days; on others I came into the office. This variety of experience within the organization primed us to think about diversity in a more active way. What about women who had to stay home with their children because the schools were closed? How do they balance their jobs given this new reality? What about the physician who has to leave the hospital and undress in the garage or basement of their home? It’s changed the way we look at work.”

It has also changed how businesses recruit and retain employees.

“Prior to the pandemic there was already a struggle to attract and retain top talent,” Islam pointed out, “Typically, those [final] interviews would happen in person so the candidate could experience the organization’s culture and determine if there was a fit,” she said. “Now, retention and recruitment efforts include a mentor from the very beginning who answers questions and helps the candidate understand the culture.”

“Nurses were in short supply before the pandemic. We’re offering signing bonus to compete in the market, but we’re also doing something similar to the buddy system, partnering new employees, especially those who are relocating to the area,” echoed Poulton. “It’s a wraparound service approach.”

“A similar trend I’m seeing with the companies we work with,” said Robert Livada, senior VP of solutions architecture at CyberGrants, “is that the employee engagement programs of the past were driven from the top down. Now, [the goal] is to cultivate grassroots engagement, allowing employees to participate in programs which they champion because it means something to them, not because it directly aligns with the corporate pillars.”

Wendy Richard, director of corporate social responsibility and community relations for the pharmaceutical company Sanofi, added, “Sanofi has approximately 4,300 employees based in Massachusetts, 100,000 in total. We’ve had leadership buy-in to the challenge that we must partner in the communities where we live. But it’s really been the employees that are driving the conversation regarding the type of workplace they want to have. We can’t do everything, but it’s about listening and responding to the employees you’re trying to attract and retain the ones you want to keep, particularly in this competitive innovation centered economy in the greater Boston area.”

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about George Floyd,” said Poulton. “The aftermath was transformative. Having been in the DEI space for over 20 years, the conversations got more real, deeper, and richer. Employees feel like they can really say what they think. I had an employee tell me, ‘You know we don’t have a space to pray during Ramadan.’ And I found a prayer space for Ramadan. It’s really fantastic to see this happening.”

“That’s a segue into one of my favorite stories,” said Livada. “Disney is one of our clients. They opened up one of their employee-engagement programs saying, ‘Listen, you can record any act of kindness that you want.’ One person posted a selfie of helping a turtle cross the road. It went viral. Every week, employees were posting pictures of themselves either helping turtles or helping other animals. That’s not one of Disney’s direct pillars, but it got everybody engaged and got everybody focused on the programs, which is great.”

Angie Chatman is a freelance writer who covers business, technology, education and social justice. She earned her MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.