How associations can utilize pandemic pods

When scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed this week, I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming amount of conversations about “pandemic pods” and if you’re anything like me, you had no idea what those were until recently. 

What started with the Micro-School Coalition fighting to transform traditional education into an innovative and personalized learning experience through intimate educational gatherings has evolved into parents world-wide rallying behind pandemic pods as an alternative to post-COVID-19 education methods. In short: some parents are creating micro-classrooms to avoid large gatherings.

But have you thought about how this concept can be applied to your organization? I did, and I’ll tell you how. But first, let’s understand what they are.

So, what exactly is a “pandemic pod?”

According to The New York Times, pandemic pods, or learning pods, are get-togethers where “groups of three to 10 students learn together in homes under the tutelage of the children’s parents or a hired teacher.” As many of us know, juggling working from home with the new added pressure of giving your child a great education is not feasible for many households. 

The U.S Bureau of Labor and Statistics reports, “among married-couple families with children, 97.5 percent had at least one employed parent in 2019, and 64.2 percent had both parents employed.”

It is this statistic that helps to understand why so many have turned to learning pods for their children’s educations. The ability to have personalized education, while easing the pressure on parents not only to be good employees, disciplinarians and teachers makes implementing learning pods an easy decision for those who can afford it.

What does a child’s education have to do with my organization?

Not only are we navigating instructing children in a post-COVID-19 world, we are also making big decisions on the safety and preservation of our organizations, their workers, and their ability to provide the same value as before. This is where pandemic pods come in. In this scenario, replace parents with management and children with your staff or members, and you now have an organization’s equivalent of a learning pod. 

“Meetings are an important way to keep your team in sync and your initiatives running smoothly,” says Ian Cornett, Executive Vice President of Global Accounts for Eagle’s Flight in his article “4 Ways Effective Meetings Benefit Your Organization.” Whether you need to share information, gather feedback, or make decisions, there are a plethora of positive effects of having weekly staff meetings.”

Keeping in mind the need for personal responsibilities when it comes to local guidelines about social distancing and mask wearing, using the foundations of a pandemic pod for your own company meetings provides an opportunity to bridge the gap between fully remote offices and returning to a semblance of normalcy.

Pick a day of the week, gather your employees or members, and safely enjoy the benefits your own pandemic pod will bring to your organization.