Month: July 2020

A message from our CEO Conrad Kenley:

“The Covid-19 Pandemic is changing the world we live in.  I am happy to report that all LCG team members are healthy and are continuing to support our customers in a manner that they have come to expect.  We believe that the new normal, once the Pandemic is controlled, will accelerate the rate of digital transformation our customers will need to accomplish their missions.  LCG stands ready to provide insight and innovation to federal government agencies to remain a step ahead in a digitally dynamic world.”

It’s been stated that society changes slowly, then all at once. We’re seeing a paradigm shift in how companies and people work with the rapidly accelerating trend of working remotely becoming not purely commonplace, but a necessity. As a result of the novel Coronavirus upending virtually all aspects of modern life as we know it, LCG has, essentially overnight, helped its customers navigate through the challenges of establishing a new remote work environment.

Helping our customers transition into the virtual work space also means ensuring they continue to deliver on their critical missions. LCG continues to provide the necessary on-site and remote support to set-up their remote infrastructure and we are a partner in the technologies, tools, training and implementation that facilitate this new reality. As the country adapts to the issues related to COVID-19, we remain committed to supporting our customers and their missions.

The primary focus of LCG has always been the health and safety of our employees, their families, and our clients. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began that concern has guided all of the decisions we have made. LCG convened an internal management group to monitor and respond to our employee concerns regarding the COVID-19 outbreak.  The group is responsible for the collection and dissemination of reliable, updated information to our employees.   Now more than ever, LCG is committed empowering our employees.  LCG provides information on safety recommendations from the WHO and CDC, federal and local legislative changes, amendments to benefits and other regulations on the LCG employee website.

We know that 2-way communication is vital for both our people and our company culture, so we conduct video conferencing daily.  This face-to-face time together helps our employees adjust to working remotely and creates personal interaction as we conduct virtual weekly team meetings, and do daily wellness checks.  Technology enables our digital workforce to maintain our human connections regardless of our new remote office location.  It is LCG’s way of embracing the digitally dynamic world that we help Government with each and every day. 

LCG will continue to support our employees, their families, our clients and our communities with our Corporate Social Responsibility partners, The NIH Children’s Inn and Feeding America.  LCG is here – every step of the way. 

LCG’s journey of successfully bringing people, processes, and technology together – continues even in these challenging times in our society. 

Today we are faced with unprecedented levels of uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a business with tenured success, what distinguishes LCG is our people, who continue to lead, strategize, and plan for positive outcomes in challenging times. Providing dedicated project oversight and continually capturing lessons learned is an integral part of LCG’s Management Framework. As we entered into the mandatory work-at-home support phase, our teams quickly had to evolve to embrace digital workplace tools to stay connected and help our customers. 

We optimized the use of digital workspace tools, and the following is a sampling of tasks our teams provided to ensure business continuity and minimize disruption risk for our customers. 

Provided Microsoft Teams Channels and SharePoint Online Features and expanded teleconferencing capabilities through Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, Skype for Business, Microsoft Whiteboard, and Balsamiq for virtually sharing ideas.
Scaled LCG’s Training Program to cover digital workplace tools such as Zoom, OneDrive, Teams, more frequently to reach a broader audience. 
Used tools such as Bomgar, Goverlan, Zoho Assist and Face Time to provide end-user technical support
Implemented on-site appointments for new staff orientation, hardware break/fix, and endpoint handoffs (All on-site visits and activities are tracked using a sign-in and detailed activities sheet. All on-site support was conducted with proper Personal Protective Equipment and thorough sanitization of all physical equipment before and after.)
Evaluated solutions on low-code platforms (SharePoint Online, ServiceNow) to bring solutions to market quickly. 
Through the Application Review Model, managed the grant peer-review process virtual environment.

The pressure continues to maintain social distancing, while organizations implement plans to “return to the physical work space.” Here at LCG, we empower our employees and customer to adopt digital tools to stay connected and collaborate to deliver on agency missions – And we continue to expand our digital resiliency to boost productivity for organizational success. 

LCG has been a Corporate Alliance Partnership Program (CAPP) member for The National Grants Management Association (NGMA) for over five years. LCG’s Grants Management team attends and supports the NGMA Annual Grants Training conference.  This event is an annual touch point for best practices and new requirements within the Grants Management environment. It provides our team with a venue to meet and discuss changes in Grants with industry stakeholders as well as partners and clients. 

This April proved challenging with the COVID-19 pandemic and the cancellation of onsite meetings and events to be held in the Metro DC area.  NGMA immediately pivoted their event to become the first Virtual Grants Training & Summit. LCG staff participated in multiple virtual sessions, visited with the staff in the Federal Foyer and engaged in attendee conversations via the virtual platform. 

 For LCG the move to virtual aligns with our first impact in the Grants space when we transition the Federal onsite peer review process to a remote environment. Since these early successes we have steadily increased our presence with the Federal Grants Landscape as we partner with our clients to re‐envision there grant systems and the associated support processes.

Another example of LCG providing Insight with Impact.