DS News

49 "We wanted to go from just the basics to get the job done to an optimal work environment." —Kelly Ann Doherty, Chief People and Communications Officer, Mr. Cooper Group the company. is year, that same survey showed an improvement to 75%. "at really spoke to how well our team members are working with each other," Doherty said. Home Point uses daily surveys to understand and address and assist with any COVID-19-related problems or technical issues the remote staff is experiencing, Coon said. Some of the biggest changes for servicers have been related to simply managing a decentralized workforce in the absence of the natural interactions co-workers and managers experience in an office setting. "e biggest adjustment to working remotely has been determining the right amount of communication to keep everyone in the know," said Dawn Adams, SVP of Default Servicing for RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing Corp. "We want to be transparent, but we do not want to overwhelm people with communication." Nevertheless, regular, ongoing communications are critical to help staff work through their own challenges of dealing with the pandemic, servicers agree. "We meet with our teams daily and have an all-hands meeting with our chairman every week," Coon said. "We have huddle sessions the first thing in the morning. We're trying to bring the office to the staff." "It's important that no team member ever feel isolated in today's environment, so we work hard to give the team that continual sense of community. We are all in this together and must support each other in any way possible," Adams said. "e company culture is very important to us," Doherty said. "We've been incredibly proud of our teams. Our people have been very productive addressing customer needs and in supporting each other." Doherty said Mr. Cooper Group is communicating with employees three times as much as previously, including videos from the CEO, biweekly leadership calls, virtual huddles, emails, and other communications. In addition to more time spent communicating with their teams, Fairway supervisors have spent additional time analyzing metrics to ensure workers continue to meet or exceed KPIs, Yowell said. "We wanted to make sure our team members working from home were quickly trained," Doherty said. Doherty said Mr. Cooper utilized WebEx to deliver training to more than 1,000 employees on the new forbearance plans offered by the government as a result of the pandemic. Other servicers told DS News they made use of Zoom or other applications for similar purposes. Some larger companies with servicing and origination operations had to quickly move people from other areas to servicing, meaning a need to train people on different skill sets to get them up to speed quickly, Mason said. e change to a remote work environment has also necessitated more individual coaching and training, Iseley said. HOME IS WHERE THE CHALLENGES ARE Central offices are designed to keep background noise to a minimum. Not so the typical home office. In addition to the occasional barking dog, loud lawn mower, or other such distractions, there are also interruptions from family—even more so once children began homeschooling in the spring. "Another hurdle we encountered early on was thinking outside the box for our team members that are juggling other responsibilities while at home," Adams said. "For example, team members that have children at home or who are caregivers to a loved one. For those folks, they are pulled in both directions, which can be physically and emotionally exhausting. In order to combat some of that stress, we offer flexible scheduling whenever possible." It has become more the norm than not to hear people or pets in the background during a meeting, Adams added. "When that happens, we take the opportunity to engage with our extended RoundPoint family. Really, the only way to get through these tough times is to have some fun and laugh when you can." Other servicers said that everyone knows "we're all in this together," so managers and customers are much more tolerant of the background noises common in many home- based offices. For work-at-home employees, NMSA recommends designating a workspace and ground rules for interacting with others; being clear from the outset as to where your

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