Stay Positive in times of Lockdown – Part 6

A month since the Prime Minister called for a complete lockdown, continuing with our series on how the industry is coping with the lockdown. The lockdown has been extended to another two weeks. The recent outbreak of the COVID – 19 has caused a tectonic shift in most people’s lives. There are so much stress and anxiety about job losses, loneliness, and other factors.

In this situation, all of us are working for home, and we Indians are not used to this scenario. But we have coped well, MediaNews4U continuing the series on, ‘Stay Positive’ spoke to Leaders in various sectors on how they are motivating their teams in dealing with this crisis

Ambika Sharma, Founder & MD, Pulp Strategy

The Human resources departments in all organizations are under enormous strain. While most organizations quickly put in place the tools needed to WFH, this new work environment has bought a unique set of challenges in keeping employees motivated and engaged.

We are all in the same boat, working from home is a necessity but it is not all that it is made out to be. There is isolation and lack of human contact, cabin fever is on its onset it’s been two weeks of lockdown and the phone calls have set ears ringing. It is not easy; humans are social creatures.

There are no easy answers but there are things that organizations can and are doing to ensure that the impact is offset, engagement has become a critical factor that will define broken teams from the ones which pull the punches and come out on top.

Create a System: Setting up a system of connecting with employees daily, not just for work but light and personal connect. This cannot be something dependent on the department it needs to be an organizational initiative. At Pulp Strategy we start the day at 10:30 every day with a team Yoga Session via video where everyone joins up, it mostly ends in chatter and conversation but it’s good to start the day like that.

Engagement: There is no substitute for team lunches and office chatter but there is the next best thing team engagement in the form of Virtual parties, team lunches, and the likes. The Important thing is to get everyone together and have a face to face conversation even if on video. Pulp Strategy HR team has started bi-weekly bingo nights, we also have a few clients and ex-employees joining in now.

Lighthearted Banter: this one is easy, groups, and communities that can help voice concerns, discuss news (there is a lot of that) and talk about things other than COVID -19. Sharing success stories, listening to voices, and living the values of your organization. Just the other day somebody raised a concern of having the charger give up on them, the next day I listened to the story of how the team came together to get a charger to the team member. I was amazed. Teams are amazing they rise to the occasion more than we ever thought possible harnessing this awesomeness as a community is the best thing we could do in such tough times.

It is possible to improve the employee engagement levels and erase the cabin fever syndrome within your teams with the help of technology and content marketing, but the key ingredient is empathy and conversation.

Hemin Bharucha, Chief Representative, India at London& Partners

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Nothing exemplifies this more than the agility with which London and Partners as an organization reacted to this global pandemic across its offices in London and key international offices in India, China, North America, Germany, and France.

Within days of the lockdown in London and across all five regions, virtual teams were set up to ensure business continuity and service to our clients and stakeholders. Equal importance was assigned to the wellbeing of all members of staff. New initiatives emerged like setting up the London and Partners academy where colleagues from different departments share their knowledge and expertise across the organization. Knowledge sharing varies from topics like business, effective ways of working to subjects like learning music, cooking and foreign languages. Another new initiative is the Social Programme which has been a huge hit. Once a week some fun activity is conducted by a member of staff. So far, we have had a quiz and a session on making little foxes using the art of Origami. How cool is that!

Given the extraordinary times we currently find ourselves in, we have an up to date mental health charter and trained mental health first aiders who are happy to chat over a call to any member of staff who may wish to seek comfort or guidance on their mental wellbeing.

As Dhirubhai Ambani said – “I look for an opportunity in every difficult situation” These are just some of the brilliant new opportunities emerging out of this otherwise gloomy situation that keep us positive and motivated as a team. I have no doubt we will all work differently at the end of this crisis but now is the time to think like Dhirubhai and seek new opportunities.

Needa Natterwala, Manager – HR, The 120 Media Collective 

The 120 Media Collective has always maintained an extremely strong values system that makes us very people-focused. This inherent nature of being able to transparently communicate and engage with everyone across disciplines and designations creates an unyielding bond that compels over 100+ people from being just employees to being members of a family, truly forming a collective.

Since the COVID19 outbreak, our management has actively tracked its growing impact and created multiple solutions based on working theories to tackle it effectively. This naturally led us to be amongst the first few to act and move into a work-from-home model.

How did we do it?

We started by leveraging the bond we shared with our people and started discussing their upcoming travel plans, distributing sanitizers and masks, educating them about government protocols and just looking out for them. Before India was taken by surprise and people had to adapt to the new ways of working, the people at 120MC were all geared up with the right ammunition, ready to embrace WFH. The decision to move into a WFH model at the cost of maybe disrupting some working processes was a simple one to make. We had one goal – safety & wellbeing for all.

What happened along the way?

It is important to ensure that everyone understands the importance of this lockdown and works through it together. We launched an internal campaign with the objective to drive positive engagement amongst teams while trying to replicate the musings of everyday office. The larger focus of this initiative was to address the mental and physical well-being of our people. The campaign was titled “I feel good”.

We understand the importance of staying positive during such testing times and we wanted to ensure that our employees know that we have got their backs.

We procured additional COVID19 insurance for our employees and their immediate family. We also have onboarded a mental health counselor to talk to our people and guide them through this feeling of uncertainty.

As I write this, we are conducting regular check-ins over and above what the reporting managers and management already do daily. Our employee engagement activities, #120WorksFromHome, and #JacksInBoxes have increased group bonding through fun social media tasks, learning sessions (#120Gyaan), and virtual town halls.

As a company, we encourage people to take regular breaks, dedicate time to learning new skills, minimize work on weekends and holidays, and try to spend time with their family. By the looks of it, the people at 120MC will come out of this lockdown being amateur chefs, data scientists, artists, and more.

Our efforts remain strong towards making our team feel safe while enabling this positive sense of togetherness as they work from home and ride out the storm.