COVID-19: Industries Balance Work and Health For Employees

Amidst the enormous spread of Coronavirus around us, we need to be safe and let others be safe. The Coronavirus pandemic has created a lot of hassle around the nation. It has affected every sector and has certainly put the entire nation on alert mode. While tackling the situation along with taking care of our health we need to keep up with our professional duties. Social distancing and working from home is the need of the hour. Human Resources managers are on critical duty these days due to COVID-19.

Shamita Ghosh, Head – Human Resources, BookMyShow

“The health and safety of our employees and their families are of paramount importance to us at BookMyShow. We recognize the ongoing health concerns due to Coronavirus and are working towards building a safe environment for all our employees across their work and home spaces. As the pandemic spreads globally and in India, we hope for the best and for conditions to improve soon. We must, however, be prepared for the worst and so it is imperative to work together during this tough period and take protective steps. It is important to deal with this situation without panic and hence we are constantly communicating with all our employees to stay calm and encourage them to follow the right practices at the right time. Preventive measures and guidelines for the same, periodic time markers to assess the situation and key check-lists as per regulatory authorities are some of the proactive measures we are adopting to help safeguard BookMyShow and its employees.”

Neha Bagaria, Founder & CEO, Jobsforher

"Many companies are now encouraging further ‘social distancing’ by announcing mandatory work-from-home and sending their employees home to work remotely.  This is the best option for organizations where a few employees have traveled or are in contact with those who have traveled. Companies are also concerned about the health and safety of their employees whose exposure increases when commuting to work and meeting other colleagues. Gather a cross-functional team together that includes business-line leaders, IT, HR, communications and facilities to plan for different scenarios and optimize execution to ensure that there is minimal impact on the business when everyone connects remotely.  Ensure your employees have the required infrastructure at home to be able to work remotely. Use sharing tools such as G Suite (Drive, Sheets, Docs, Slides) to collaborate live on documents when working in teams, The absence of face-to-face communication can be frustrating. So last but not the lease -  trust your teams while providing them guard rails with the flexibility to deliver with clearly defined targets."

Anuradha Bharat, Head - People Operations, Razorpay

"A lot of us haven't experienced life during a pandemic. Yet, with working from home mandates and social distancing, it is heartening to see that all of us across the world are doing all that we can to ensure the spread of the virus is substantially reduced. Here at Razorpay, the safety of our employees and our community is our highest priority and we are complying with all precautions to ensure this. From a business productivity standpoint, as a new age technology company, Work From Home is a common practice at Razorpay. And given the current situation, we are strongly encouraging and mandating our team to work digitally until the situation needs, and providing them with the necessary resources to ensure business continuity. Our cross-functional training is also helping teams to be prepared to back each other up at all times."

Pawan Gadia, CEO, Retail & Online, Ferns N Petals

“As a responsible brand, we have taken all possible measures for the safety of our customers, partners and employees. To reduce the risk of exposure to the infection, we have enabled Work from Home in all the possible departments and encouraging employees to avoid any external meetings and cancel travel plans. We have suggested our workforce to keep calm and take the precautions wisely to fight the outbreak of Coronavirus. The office premises are being regularly sanitized with the disinfectants, kept disposables masks and sanitizers at all staff touchpoints. Apart from this, we are providing sanitizers, masks and gloves in our retail stores of infected regions and also instructed the staff to sanitize their hands before delivering the product. To further educate the customers, we have been putting posts on our social media channels on how to keep themselves safe from the virus.”

Sandip Chhettri, Chief Operating Officer, TradeIndia

"The key drivers affecting change in the way we work are technology and the millennial workforce. Technology-on-the-go allows the team to complete tasks and attend meetings from anywhere in the world. We have developed proper reporting and tracking software to make sure our employees remain focused on their work.  We have also developed the Sales Force Automation App to monitor the activity of our SalesForce, which helps them to work remotely. Working from home, not only benefits employees by eliminating their daily commutes, but it also increases productivity and leads to healthier lifestyles. It's a win-win situation that employees relish for its flexibility".

Bharath Sastry, CEO of Vistaprint India

"I was fortunate to work from home for 1.5 years earlier in my career when I had my own startup. Sharing some learnings -

Be Prepared – have the proper infrastructure for yourself and team, namely laptops, wifi, video/ audio, a suitable chair and table at home.

Office-like - Work during the day exactly as you would do otherwise at the office. Start off at the same time, go through your meetings & actions and end the day as you would do at the office.

Trust (that your team is also working), and trust me they will be”

Monish Anand; Founder & CEO of Shubh Loans 

'With the situation of Coronavirus spreading, we feel it will only get worse before it gets better. At Shubh Loans we have taken several precautionary steps to address the issue with a business contingency plan such as conducting deep cleaning of the office on a frequent basis,  allowing a majority of our workforce to work from home, providing masks and hand sanitizers at the office so daily commuters are protected from the infections and preventing delivery personnel from entering the office premises to avoid any risks associated with carriers.
We also provide comprehensive medical insurance plans that include coverage for parents which proves to be extremely valuable at times like these.'