How SoWork Increased Rocket Takeoffs Productivity

The Problem

Rocket Takeoffs helps realtors, engineers and contractors launch their construction projects. Their team is fully remote, spread across North America.

Lonely teammates, missing goals

They faced challenges with collaboration, communication, and maintaining a cohesive team culture. Productivity levels were inconsistent, despite teammates being talented. The quality of work suffered, and goals weren’t being achieved.

Our team felt isolated, since working from home can be lonely. We weren’t collaborating often or communicating with each other well. It was a really challenging time for us and we needed a change.

Nina, Rocket’s Human Resources Manager, started to investigate.

She noticed cross-team collaboration was at an all-time low, and knew something was missing.

• Team members worked in silos, hindering creativity and innovation.
• These silos lowered work quality.
• And quality issues often went unnoticed until later stages.
• Work was delayed, and often needed to be redone.

Work was getting stuck in back-and-forth. People were blocked. Projects were getting redone because of miscommunications.

We just got a sense that we weren’t being as streamlined as we could be, and we actually had to take on fewer clients! When that happened, the alarm bells went off.

No spontaneous collaboration

The team felt disconnected from each other without meaningful face-to-face interactions.

• Communication primarily relied on emails, chats, and occasional video calls
• The team didn't have a cadence of coming together to bond, play, or collaborate spontaneously.
• This led to a sense of isolation and detachment.

It’s a very familiar story for many remote teams. Nina and her leadership team became determined to find a solution.

The Solution

Rocket decided to implement a virtual workspace. They did a ton of research and chose SoWork.

They were drawn to the realistic look and feel of the avatars that allowed teammates to express themselves. SoWork also gives them the ability to completely customize their Office to suit their productivity needs and culture.

SoWork’s in-app chat is a critical piece that helps their team connect quickly and move faster. And, as a fully remote team, AI meeting summaries and meeting recordings were equally attractive. These features are used daily, saving the Rocket team time, and ensuring they’re on the same page.

SoWork gives the team a sense of togetherness, and we can actually work side by side.

We can ask questions and get the answers we need faster, have quick syncs, full team meetings, and really express our culture and unique talents.

Everything we need to accomplish goals as a team is here, and we love that we can see others working and feel that buzzing office atmosphere.

Nina noticed SoWork’s impact right away.

She was delighted to discover their new office was easy to adjust to and navigate, and it truly felt like being in the same place, together. Rocket uses SoWork for weekly reviews, 1:1s, stand-ups, between meeting games, and teamwork blocks, completely demolishing prior feelings of isolation.

Rocket is finally able to come together, interact, and build relationships in real-time. Decisions can be made quickly, and problems can get solved. SoWork enables Rocket teammates to connect easily.

They can get unblocked, share ideas, and work together on projects seamlessly. Because of this, their efficiency skyrocketed. No more endless email threads or long scheduled meetings.

How Rocket Takeoffs Uses SoWork

• Rocket loads into the Office daily to be together as a team.
• Each team member creates a personalized avatar, fostering a sense of identity and belonging.
• All teammates have their own Workspots that they’ve customized with photos of their pets, team retreat memories, team colors and logos.
• They designed their space like they would a real, in-person office. It’s filled with themed rooms for company get-togethers, one-on-ones, general meeting rooms, cafe areas, a gym, and even zones for rest and relaxation.
• They’ve created a space that’s uniquely theirs, and it has everything they need to meet productively.

Rocket’s departments are clearly marked, and larger Workspot areas are given to team seniors and managers, providing key landmarks for questions and guidance.

In the Engineering Zone, a teammate updates the area daily with an Engineering Tip of the Day. With this, knowledge can be shared in a smooth, accessible way.

Rocket has an HR Zone that makes it easy for teammates to get help when they need it. When onboarding new hires, a person from HR shows them around SoWork on their first day. They’re given a tour of the space, shown how their Virtual HQ is used day-to-day, and who else they can find there. This way, new team members feel connected and get oriented easily.

We are literally in SoWork all day, no more Teams and Zoom, we use SoWork. We train new hires here, have huddles and all meetings there too. We also love the AI summaries and meeting recordings - we use those for every meeting since it helps keep our distributed team in the loop and saves us so much time.

SoWork Benefits

Increased Collaboration and Communication

Whether it’s brainstorming with a colleague after a meeting, playing games between meetings, or bonding with a new hire in the break room, Rocket now has opportunities for informal communication and connection. This has an enormous impact on the team’s morale, togetherness, and culture. Team members can collaborate on projects and achieve goals easily, regardless of where they live.

We’ve found that team morale has gone way up, and it’s been natural. You can really feel that everyone’s been inspired to collaborate more since it’s just way faster than it was before. It’s easier to get feedback on a project and ask questions as soon as something comes up - it’s a lot less wasted time, it’s amazing.

Productivity Tools

Beyond quick, spontaneous communication, SoWork is loaded with time-saving meeting tools. Unproductive meetings disappeared.

The meeting recordings provide massive value for Nina’s team. Recordings are stored automatically and can easily be accessed after the meeting, available to share amongst teammates or external partners right away.

AI meeting summaries and action items directly save Nina’s team time, allowing them to resolve issues quickly. Key decisions can be made without delay. With this, they’ve streamlined processes even further, equalling a faster turnover of tasks, and capacity to take on more work as a result.

When there are issues, we’ve found that we’re able to solve them much faster, and we can perform at more optimal levels than before SoWork, since we’re all in the same place, and much more in sync. We all have access to the summaries and action items, so we can be on the same page and not have any unnecessary delays.

Conclusion

We couldn't work without SoWork. Company culture is up, turnover is down. We're more efficient and creative. Outstanding customer service, new features weekly.. SoWork is the future.

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