IDEO meets changing business demands with complete staffing flexibility

Meet IDEO

IDEO is a leading global design consultancy with over 700 employees worldwide. They create positive impact through design by taking a human-centered approach to helping organizations in the public and private sectors innovate, grow, and bring to market new ideas.

Having Virtual Gurus on board has been beneficial for both the internal team and leadership guidance. The internal team appreciates the extra help managing calendars, scheduling and cleaning inboxes. And since then, the team has been able to take on more productive leadership roles, which has helped streamline operations in a huge way.

 

Margo C.
Studio Coordinator, IDEO

The opportunity

Like most organizations, IDEO had to figure out how to operate and manage teams virtually during the pandemic. In the midst of making this transition, they were also undergoing a major restructuring, creating virtual communities of discipline to bring together team members from offices in various cities. They soon identified a need to bring in more administrative support to help coordinate those communities so that the IDEO team could focus on their core areas of expertise.

The objectives

• Provide IDEO leaders with fractional administrative assistants to support a rapidly changing organization
• Create more leadership opportunities for IDEO team members by reducing their administrative workload

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The solution

The Virtual Gurus team matched IDEO with a team of virtual executive assistants, with each assistant typically supporting three to four leaders. One lead assistant acts as the key point of contact for IDEO to monitor all of the matches and identify if and when any changes need to be made or additional support is required.

Based on the success of the partnership, IDEO leaders soon started to request additional short-term special project help, over and above their ongoing virtual executive assistant needs. Virtual Gurus has been able to quickly meet these needs by finding additional virtual assistants who bring the skills needed for each particular project,  for whatever duration is required.

Additional assistants are being added to the team regularly, with eight assistants currently supporting various IDEO leaders.

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The impact

Virtual Gurus’ flexible subscription-based model has allowed IDEO to meet changing business demands with complete staffing flexibility. As a result, the team feels confident they can continue to adapt quickly to any situation that might arise, while also providing more opportunities for IDEO team members to take on greater leadership roles.

The biggest impact overall has been ensuring that the IDEO team is well positioned to keep the operation running smoothly in the midst of shifting internal team dynamics. That, in turn, is enabling sustainable growth.