Finding Compassion: B Thiagarajan, MD Blue Star Ltd.

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.

Mr B Thiagarajan positively reflected on the upward trend he perceives as Blue Star recovers from the Pandemic. Mr Thiagarajan said, “Sales has been good when compared with the previous year. It is upwards of around 20% I think and in the coming months, we will be witnessing around 25% growth and that again is due to what Paul (Dupuis) mentioned about people getting used to working from remote places. People are making their home comfortable and that is very evident from the fact that the air conditioner sales are up and they are also moving to larger residential accommodations.” 

Commenting on daily operations, he remarked, “In our case, the factories are working with full strength. The service operation is working with full strength, construction sites wherever it is allowed is working in full strength and as far as our offices are concerned, they are working with around 25% staff. Specifically, in Mumbai, from this week, we have restrictions where unless and until it is essential, there is no one need to come to the office. It is practically closed and the sales take place at dealer locations and people are using digitally enabled roasters.”

In dealing with the Pandemic, Thiagarajan continued that the first step was ‘compassion.’ “(Employees) they are undergoing stress in their personal life too and at this point, it’s about how you can become more compassionate than what you had been (in the past), the second part is being aware. Our business is entirely dependent on the summer season. We suffered a lot and thus we had quite a bit of restriction coming into force. Increments were cut, salaries were cut in a few cases and even promotions were denied. So now it’s about how fast we can bring it all back. This is also a part of wellness as the mental state is determined by these factors as well. So, from July onwards as the economy started reviving, we started rolling back some of those restrictions that we have imposed on our employees.” He continued to say how the Blue Star adopted a compassionate front and paused transfers and focussed on training and development exponentially.

In terms of wellness, the organization partnered with agencies to afford physical fitness and yoga and also focussed on imparting knowledge on how nutrition and wellness can be brought into the lives of blue-collar workers and their families. He added, “In fact, BlueStar's CSR is getting redefined into Wellness, Health and Hygiene.  

The company has also had to battle perceptions that air conditioning is detrimental to the pandemic. The Blue Star MD highlighted how the company spent time on research and development in terms of ventilation, fresh air augmentation, filters that can remove viruses and air pollution, etc and ensured that such products reached customers as well as employees.