Despite the extraordinary challenges brought on by the pandemic, Genetec is proud to report that there were no employee or salary reductions in 2020. On the contrary, the company continued to grow its recruitment programme, putting in place new remote onboarding processes, providing employees with the essential equipment to do their jobs from home, setting up remote training sessions, and regular team building events. The company is currently recruiting for over 200 open positions available for online application.

Genetec also continued with its active paid internship programme, offering over 230 software engineering, sales and marketing intern positions throughout the year. In addition, Genetec was selected for inclusion in The Career Directory 2021, Mediacorp's guide to entry-level recruitment for recent college and university graduates.

The popular Genetec onsite bistro "Les Cordons Bleus" and the company's new fitness centre both saw their usually busy facilities go from full to nearly empty back in March 2020. Genetec has since redirected the bistro and fitness teams' talents to virtual engagements to offer its employees live and on-demand fitness training sessions, and cooking classes for the whole family. The bistro team even prepared festive make-at-home food kits for employees who wanted to recreate delicious gourmet fare in their own kitchens.

Ever since the early days of the pandemic, the leadership team felt it was important to keep everyone connected. By instituting weekly all-hands meetings led by the company's President, all employees are provided with an update on the business and can directly express their concerns, ask questions, or simply share a laugh with the whole team.

"At Genetec, we take care of our own. It's essential to our company culture," said Richard Paillière, Vice-President of Human Resources & Talent Management at Genetec. "While we are lucky to be able to do our jobs from home, we realise that this is a challenging time for all Genetec employees, and we want to be as supportive as possible. To this effect, we have developed best practices on working from home and are hosting regular sessions for employees on the topic of mental health and how to handle stress. We have also set up virtual lounges and coffee break areas to allow employees to interact with colleagues as they would at the office, giving them a place to chat and decompress during the workday."