After 6+ weeks working from home, many are eager to reunite with their colleagues, while some are getting comfortable with connecting remotely. The common denominator is managing change. Staying connected while away makes transitioning back into the office smoother, and for those who will remain a zoom call away, it allows them to feel like an active part of the team.

Our WFH (Westgroup From Home) Wellness Challenge has enlivened and engaged our staff to get and stay connected like never before…and now we’re sharing our secret sauce with all of you! Each Week our WFH Wellness Challenge provides inspiration, a sense of camaraderie and friendly competition, as well as opportunities to be your best self! Weekly goals involving sharing healthy habits, self-care, energy builders, sustainability, environmental resilience, stress relief and creativity earn participant points toward a WD charity donation and, of course, winner’s bragging rights for the week! Staff completes their goal forms and submits them with any photos of their activities; they also post some of these on our Instagram and tag @WestgroupDesigns for some online promo! Sharing the weekly updates with these great submissions serves as a scrapbook of the success along the way, which we will be continuing to do, sharing this at our quarterly all staff celebrations!

Now its YOUR TURN! We’re providing our custom template of our WFH Challenge for you to use with your staff and teams. Have fun with it, and feel free to tag @WestgroupDesigns with your photos…we may just feature YOU and your inspiring activities in an upcoming post!

Sustainable and resilient strategies, for their places and spaces, is a priority that we share with our clients and project partners. As our team, along with all of you, celebrates the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, in support of the efforts to protect our environment, thinking globally, acting locally, we are reminded of what we can do, and continue to do, while we WFH (Westgroup From Home).

Everyone in the WD family is committed to reducing our individual carbon footprint. Here are just a few ways our team members are contributing to ecological resilience from home:

3.18.2020

To our valued Clients, Project Partners, Industry Colleagues and Community,

At Westgroup Designs, our highest priority will always be the safety and well-being of our family of employees, and you, our clients, project partners and professional community.

As we monitor and navigate through the COVID-19 situation, we have employed a work plan to continue providing service which, for the time-being, will include eliminating non-urgent travel, minimizing in-person contact, employing our advanced technology capabilities to work remotely, conducting virtual meetings and maintaining our secure file-sharing methods. Our technology infrastructure already utilizes a platform with seamless, remote support for our team, so we will continue working without interruption.

Staying connected as an industry and community is more important than ever, so our steadfast commitment to all of you will not change.

As such, we will continue to provide the service and care you have come to expect from our professional team. We are also monitoring the activity of local agencies and jurisdictions and will continue to share best practices and updates with our fellow industry professionals, as we weather this storm together.

May you all remain safe and well as we collectively and pro-actively address this rapidly changing situation in an unprecedented environment. We encourage all to take the necessary health precautions to protect yourself and your family. To learn more, please visit the CDC at cdc.gov, or your local Health department.

WD_PressRelease_Covid19_3.18.2020Download

Above is a sneak peak of the first of 4 new Fire Stations, for the City of Downey, nearing completion. WD created each of these unique facilities to serve the dedicated men and women of the Downey Fire Department who strive to deliver the highest quality of service to the expanding needs of their community every day. The thoughtful design of these buildings and their environments represent a great new experience for these first-responders and support staff which will significantly increase the functionality and flexibility of their space, firefighter comfort and parity across stations; along with an enhanced civic presence and identity.

Learn more about this project

Nearing completion, the auditorium Westgroup Designs created for the Garden Grove High School La Quinta campus is a multi-functional venue for daily use by teachers, students and the community. The auditorium is an important space in any high school fortunate to have one. It is used for all types of engagement from plays, concert performances and ceremonies to informational school assemblies. These varied events place a range of demands on the room. For every use, it is essential that everyone in the room hear everything presented, which puts a great deal of focus on appropriate acoustics. With the revamping and restricting of so many classrooms to move away from traditional rows of desks, it becomes clear that tapping into the auditorium is a great opportunity to let learning take center stage! Students can act out history lessons and world events; teachers can engage groups to read aloud to classmates, guest speakers can have a captive audience to inspire the next generation. We’re excited just thinking of all of the creativity to be generated in this multi-functional environment!

The auditorium building is slated to be complete at the end of February, 2020.

It is the most wonderful time of the year! Each year, Westgroup Designs is delighted to continue participating in programs which benefit and support our community’s at-risk youth in Orange County. Through Share Our Selves and WeCare, both social services organizations that focus on outreach to those in need, we delivered holiday cheer to children and their families!

WD participated in the annual We Care event, sponsored by Herman Miller, benefiting the Boys & Girls Club of Tustin. We Care allows children to let their creativity shine by making holiday gifts for their family, teachers and friends at a variety of craft stations. For many of the children, this is the only way they can provide gifts to their loved ones. This year we created Edible Snowmen; a clever and creative craft that includes a warm pair of gloves the gift recipient can wear all season long!

We are also honored to continue participating in the Share Our Selves Adopt-A-Family program, celebrating its 50th year supporting many struggling families by providing gifts and food for the holidays. This year, more than 1,440 families and 4500 children, recommended by Costa Mesa and Santa Ana organizations and schools, would not normally receive gifts or have enough food for the holidays. Through the generous donations of WD staff and our firm, another family will experience joy, comfort and the relief of knowing that so many care, and together we all help to transform our community.