Relocation Africa’s Wacky Wednesday Check Ins

By Joy Jackson, Relocation Africa’s HR Manager.

At Relocation Africa Head Office, we are big on check ins and prior to the onset of COVID19, we had a 7 minute daily morning check in with the team which proved to be very valuable. 

When we had to go into lockdown, which required working remotely, we had to find another way to connect as a team and Zoom became “our best friend” and we started off with bi-weekly check ins, but as the restrictions started lifting and we made a decision to come into the office twice a week from 1 June, our team check ins moved to once a week, and Wacky Wednesday was born.

I have carefully selected questions each week ranging from more serious topics to the really wacky ones and I have been using this time to get our team to connect again despite the upside down world that we find ourselves in.

Some of our check in questions have included the following:

• If you won the lottery, (and the payout is in the millions) what’s the first thing you would buy / do and why?
• Share one lesson that lockdown has “taught” you and what “one thing” are you going to change when lockdown is over
• Without being modest, what do you value about yourself and what are your greatest strengths 
• What is your favorite possession – please also provide a brief explanation as to why
• Reflect on a challenge that you have overcome (personal or work related)
• Share the challenge briefly, describe what you did to overcome it, and how did that change you / what lesson did you learn
• You have to sing karaoke, what song do you pick?    

The karaoke check in highlighted that we have some very talented humming birds on our team, but more importantly every single one of us really lived up to our promise of embracing the unknown and were brave enough to sing on Zoom, which produced varying moments of humour (which was my intention, as laughter and fun is also important in a team).    

But there has been one check in question that has really stood head and shoulders out from the rest:  

If you could grab one superpower, which one would you pick and why?

Here are just a few of the superpowers that were revealed and chosen by our team:    

Invulnerability; The power to be immune from all forms of physical damage. It does not necessarily mean immortal but more of an enhanced durability. Since a child I have loved superheroes because their mission was to protect the innocent from evil. I wanted to become a lawyer because I desired to represent those who didn’t have the means to protect and represent themselves against evil injustice. 

My super power would be speed, I want love to speed up  the current situation we are in and move to a brighter better tomorrow

I chose a crystal ball as my super power – we currently in a world of VUCA – volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity and although in Africa we are more used to dealing with this type of environment, however I would like to be giving the staff, our stakeholders a sense of comfort and certainty going into the future and I thinking having that Crystal Ball Superpower I would be able to know what is in the future and clear out all the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity and give them a sense of certainty and comfort.  I do feel change is inevitable in the future and it is requiring us to build our resilience to both cope and start building our own accretion to be more versatile and understanding and be engaging with our stakeholders with care and kindness.

Shapeshifting is a power that allows someone to change themselves, on a cellular level, to shift into a different form. This could be in part, for example, just changing their clothing to match something they see, or changing their entire body to look like a completely different person.

Not only does this sound fun, but it also provides the ability to get out of tricky situations easily.  Also, it would provide a chance to escape for some peaceful time on my own, if I wanted that.

Furthermore, I like the idea of being able to show someone what they would look like doing something (similar to them looking in a mirror). For example, I could show someone lacking self confidence what they might look like giving a particular speech. I could have fun myself, and help others in that way.

I will probably choose the ability to fly and have always also been interested in learning to fly a small plane or helicopter.

I think we have all had dreams where we can fly and I certainly had these very often in my dream life even though sadly not in recent years.

I also attended a course on meditation and breathing some years ago where some of the mental exercises concentrating on freeing the mind from the body entailed first imagining yourself sitting on the ceiling of your room looking down on your body, this then evolved into exploring the rest of your house from your ceiling and eventually also your city using a mountain or hilltop as your vantage point – and I realised that this was entirely achievable and an amazing experience.

My chosen Superpower would be to be invisible as so much is requiring my attention right now, and I feel pretty depleted, so if I could disappear for a short while to be able to re-charge and then return with a full life battery and be 100% present and support those that need me. Whilst in invisible mode.

I would also like to be able to time travel into the future to catch a quick glimpse of the future to reassure myself and report back to others that we successfully overcome COVID19 and that the world has learned important and valuable lessons and changed for the better in this historic time. 

So, whilst what has happened during Relocation Africa’s Head Office check ins have not stayed with Relocation Africa, (what happens in Vegas has not stayed in Vegas) my hope is that you have gained some insight into our team dynamics and I challenge you to embrace the unknown with us, and share your chosen Superpower story with me by emailing: joy@relocationafrica.com

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].