To Employees, Agents, Clients, Business Partners, and Friends of Ideal Concepts,
We hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy during the continuing pandemic. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, we have made the difficult decision to keep our offices closed through at least January 2021.
In the face of continually rising coronavirus numbers, the Pennsylvania governor’s order last week asking businesses to have employees telework if possible, and what we feel is our obligation to our employees and their families to do whatever we can to help keep everyone safe from this virus, we are taking a very conservative and restrained approach when it comes to returning to the office.
This was not an easy decision, and we did not make it lightly. We are continuing to closely monitor the impact of the pandemic, and will inform our employees and the public when we feel we are ready to open the doors to our Allentown, PA offices again.
Since we closed our offices on March 16th, 2020 due to the quarantine, Ideal Concepts has had no serious interruptions of business. In fact, sales are up, we have experienced no major technical difficulties, and we’ve added 32 new employees! We have each of our individual teams and employees to thank for that- everyone stepped up, did their part, and made sure the transition to fully remote work was conducted as easily and seamlessly as possible. We appreciate the dedication and flexibility each of our employees has displayed during this challenging year.
As part of our plan to keep employees working remotely for the remainder of the year, we’ve taken steps to ensure that all team members feel connected and equipped for the months ahead. Ideal Concepts will be providing our full-time employees with new company equipment (specifically laptops). We understand and appreciate that employees have been providing their own work equipment during quarantine, and this may have added a strain to what could already be a less than ideal work from home situation.
Since this remote situation is now going to be a lot longer than we originally anticipated, we are asking employees to remember to reach out to their fellow employees to check in every once in a while. There may be team members who are quarantining by themselves, or otherwise feeling isolated. In place of the in-office comradery we normally enjoy at Ideal Concepts, we are encouraging employees to utilize our in-house text, audio, and video communication systems to say hi or otherwise reach out remotely. It is important to help foster and maintain the close relationships we experienced in office!
While we are very disappointed that we won’t be seeing our employees’ lovely smiling faces in office any time soon, we are counting our blessings that Ideal Concepts is one of the lucky ones: We are not going out business. In general, business has not suffered as some others have during this pandemic. We do not have to lay off any employees. No one’s job is in jeopardy. We are able to provide all 140+ employees with cutting-edge remote equipment. We don’t have to wear masks for 9 hours a day. We are moving forward and anticipate celebrating a record year in revenue, sales, and employee growth! And so far, we are all safe.
Thank you for your continued hard work, dedication, and loyalty! Stay safe and feel free to reach out with any questions,
John Pequeno
Ideal Concepts President
