#wirhaltenzusammen: Members of the valantic Community support each other in the time of the coronavirus

The coronavirus has upended people’s everyday lives. In these difficult times, it is especially good to know, despite social distancing, home office, and closed schools and day care centers, that people are still there for one another. In order to better confront all of these new challenges, valantic has created the project #wirhaltenzusammen (#westicktogehter) for its employees in the space of just one weekend. The project is fueled by the mutual support at valantic. Whether virtual fitness classes, math tutoring, homework help or a story hour for the littlest ones, every employee can offer something and take advantage of others’ offerings.

Fit at home – valantic’s special concern for the whole family 

Currently, almost all of valantic’s 1000 employees are working from home offices. As effective as this measure is against the spread of the coronavirus, at the same time it sharply limits regular movement and social contact. In order to keep valantic employees and their families physically and mentally fit during this time of stay-at-home restrictions, valantic has done something special: Via online meeting, you can participate in an individually designed fitness coaching session twice a week; these sessions are custom-tailored specifically for the participants’ needs and possibilities. 

To accomplish this, we have worked with the Langenfeld (#supportyourlocals) CrossFit coach, fitness expert, and former professional soccer player, Thomas Hübener, to formulate a workout program that is broadcast and led virtually. Participants transmit their images to the coach via webcam so that he can make sure they are doing the exercises correctly. For one hour twice a week, the homebound athletes can keep themselves fit and then talk to people and maintain social contacts that extend beyond just the professional. They can then take what they have learned in the workouts and recombine these skills in their free time to create their own family fitness programs. This is an idea that may even survive the stay-at-home orders of the coronavirus crisis and become a new trend for the company’s health promotion.

Support for education

Working in a home office everyday, taking care of children around the clock, helping them with their schoolwork, and also ensuring that you have sufficient variety in your restricted everyday life – many valantic parents are currently under enormous stress. Here too, the platform of the valantic community can help members to make these big challenges a little easier. Even at the start of the project there were numerous offers of tutoring, homework help, boxing training, and story hours from motivated valantic employees from all areas of the company, including top management. Just as so many nice projects around the world have arisen with the pandemic and will surely continue to make our everyday life a little better even after this is all over, valantic’s #wirhaltenzusammen should also remain a project that is designed and will be enhanced by colleagues for colleagues.