“The office of the future will be a place to collaborate innovate and celebrate and not necessarily a place to do work.” Paul Dupuis, MD and CEO, Randstad India

In a leadership discourse under the initiative #RandstadLeadershipDialogues in association with BW People, Paul Dupuis MD and CEO of Randstad, B Thiagarajan, the MD of Blue Star Ltd, Divya Karani CEO of Dentsu X, Marzin Shroff, MD and CEO of Eureka Forbes were in conversation with Dr Annurag Batra Chairman and Editor-in-chief of BW Businessworld and exchange4media to discuss employee wellness and the theme, “Back to Workplace: Re-Engaging & Nurturing Employees at Workplace post-COVID” The episode attracted over 1000+ viewers across platforms.

The CEO and MD of Randstad, Paul Dupuis shared many insights on the ground reality of employee productivity and the leadership responsibility in terms of engaging employees amid the pandemic. The conversations progressed to the emerging reality of Hybrid workspaces and what it means to organizations. He offered that while their physical locations are only operating 10% of their capacity, the safety precautions undertaken are in no way relaxed. He explained “Everything we do is based first on data regarding safety, like the COVID rates in the particular location, and then we create a ‘Clean Zone’ ensuring that our offices are safe places to be. And this to me is strongly connected with the theme today, which is Wellness- both of course physically, but it's also about emotional Wellness, and we're seeing this across the world in 38 countries where Randstad operates from”  

Delving into initiatives for employee engagement, Dupuis added that the organization began with leadership championed health and fitness home videos, mental and emotional wellness programs like Randstad Carnival and a designated radio station where members of the board took turns being the Radio Jockey and playing their favourite tunes. Randstad also partnered with Oxfam to participate in virtual walks and protect the unprotected. Dupuis succinctly put “Our mantra was safety, engagement and then productivity, we believe the outcomes will follow” 

In terms of getting back to the office, he explained the different measures they observed, “We developed an app which is called ‘Move in sync’, which is a contactless approach to coming back to the office. You register, you reserve your desk and then you get a QR code with which you show up at the office- then there is a temperature check followed by a verification of the QR code before you get admitted. Even I do this whenever I go to the office.” 

Commenting on the emerging hybrid workspaces, he recounted how Randstad is preparing itself for all eventualities. “25 to 30% of people do not want to go back to the office regardless of whether the company deems it to be safe, whether the Government says it safe and regardless of whether vaccines are administered. There is a large part of the workforce that simply does not want to go ‘back to the workplace’ for different reasons. One of those concerns is safety. The other one is that they're comfortable working in this new world. So, we're also preparing for that. We're rethinking the purpose of our locations and our offices as we move forward in the New World. I believe the office of the future will be a place to collaborate innovate and celebrate and not necessarily a place to do work.”