As COVID-19 hit working practices last year , Synchrony , a leading private label credit card company , had to find new ways to support and care for its employees . Nearly all of its staff were working from home , with many balancing work and childcare , especially during the summer of 2020 .
Here , Synchrony ’ s Senior Vice President of Talent & Transformation , Liz Heitner , explains how CEO Margaret Keane , and other senior leaders , came up with a creative idea that ended up benefiting the whole organisation .
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’ m sure I ’ m not alone in having fond memories of those seemingly endless , perfect summers of my childhood : no school , long , hot days , the prospect and excitement of summer camp . Several months into 2020 ’ s pandemic , what wouldn ’ t we have given to have one of those summers – for our children and ourselves ?
It was not to be , of course . By the end of the school year , the Synchrony community – like everyone else – had weathered months of living with COVID-19 and unprecedented changes to the way we did our jobs . Parents balancing full working lives with homeschooling and limited childcare were on their knees .
Earlier in the year , we had been piloting tutoring programmes , with Synchrony employees offering tutoring and reading practice to children and teenagers in our community . The Synchrony Parent Community was also meeting regularly for mutual support and ideas sharing .
With summer on the horizon , it was time to up the ante . We knew that many of our parents would face a challenging time , with young children to look after and entertain ; we could sense the disappointment of teenagers who had missed out on the usual rites of passage and had no summer jobs to go to ; college students were returning home with their internships cancelled .
A healthy dose of humanity can have a lasting , positive effect when it comes to how we connect
We believed that there had to be a way to bring all of these challenges together into an opportunity . And so the idea for our first virtual Synchrony Summer Camp was born .
The aim of the camp was simple : to replicate as closely as possible the activities and spirit of a typical summer camp experience . Every day , children aged 4-14 could access live , interactive sessions from a rich programme of activities , from fitness and crafts to culture and STEM . Virtual sessions were delivered by high-school and college students whose summers had been so badly disrupted – our Synchrony Summer Camp externs , who each committed to delivering 10 sessions of programming . Each extern was paired with a Synchrony employee mentor for support and encouragement .
It was always important to us that the camp offered opportunities for children to interact with each other and make new friends . It was also a global initiative , available to all employees across the US , India and the Philippines , with customised programming in each area .
Once we had this vision and infrastructure in place , we needed to make it happen . Working with our partners at AMS , we were able to create the right platform , build a fun brand , boost opportunities for participation and engagement and roll out an incredible series of activities . By building up a bank of recorded sessions on the camp website Replays Pages , children and parents could also access the fun whenever they wanted to , after the session too . By the end of the summer , 130-plus externs had entertained and engaged more than 3,600 campers . After some initial and understandable scepticism about quality and screen time , parent feedback was both positive and supportive .
I was pretty apprehensive after seeing how difficult online schooling was for my kids . However , I am loving the new schedule and how excited my kids get to join . Each day they tell me something new that they learned . It has really been so helpful for us ! Summer Camp parent
Importantly , we were able to reinforce messages about D & I , whether through story times that focused on the importance of respecting others ’ differences , a hugely popular series of sign language classes , or activities designed to support less-privileged members of our local communities .
Despite the many challenges of the pandemic , I believe there has never been a better time to be an HR professional . We ’ ve had to break through the confines that define how we usually operate and take a more holistic approach to how we interact with and support our employees and their families .
The summer camp is a perfect example of this mutual support approach in action . Designed primarily to support parents with campage children , it also ended up being a resilience-building and resumeboosting opportunity for our externs and offered meaningful outreach opportunities for our mentors .
With a return to any sort of normalcy still some time away , we ’ ve continued and expanded the support we offer , through our Parent Wellness Wednesdays and tutoring and activities in our Synchrony After School programme . We even enlisted the help of one of our business partners to teach a three-part extracurricular programme on coding .
The idea of a corporate ‘ family ’ can often be overplayed , but at Synchrony , the pandemic really has reinforced how a healthy dose of humanity and a focus on wellbeing can have a lasting , positive effect when it comes to how we connect with one another .
Our commitment to our values , trust and engagement has never been more important . If 2020 taught us anything , it ’ s that we really are all in it together . It ’ s a culture that will stay with us long after COVID-19 is a distant memory .
The view from AMS : Brittany Best
It was a pleasure to work with the team at Synchrony to help them bring their virtual summer camp to life . Our Brand & Attraction team brought its ‘ A-game ’ in every respect . We worked together every step of the way , from building and managing the camp website and designing logos and the overall camp theme to video editing and mailing out hundreds of teddy bears and camp stickers . Two major highlights were the Synchrony ’ s Got Talent video competition and the Virtual Art Exhibit , which showcased campers ’ creativity including paintings , drawings , poems and more .
To help meet the key goals of interaction and participation , we designed the camp badge tracker , a sheet where campers could track the activities they ’ d completed and earn badges along the way . Once six badges had been earned , the tracker could be entered to win a prize , which proved to be very popular .
The camp was an excellent example of how teamwork and collaboration can make a difference , even in the most challenging of times .