Coming up for air from the devastating second wave of Covid-19, it was clear that we have to maintain our focus on the pandemic's impact on business and employees.
Delta, Epsilon, Zeta
As the first wave subsided, people thought Covid-19 had gone away. But after the second wave, everyone is resigned about the coming third wave. When will it happen? Who will it impact the most?
The more worrying predictions are those of the virus mutations that will nullify the vaccination process and take us back to square one. Here's one tweet that embodied the fear:
As Covid-19 continues to dominate the scene, employers are grappling with many questions
- How do we ensure the well-being of our employees and even survival?
- How do we balance the tension between productivity on the one hand and the turmoil and upturned lives of most people?
The Future Workplace
In the next normal, hybrid work and work-from-home are here to stay. Reorienting and adapting are vital for businesses to survive and thrive.
Here's what Leena Nair, CHRO of Unilever, had to say
"For all the sadness the pandemic has brought and is still bringing, one thing I hope we can take from this is the flexibility it has brought to businesses and to people. It would be dreadful to return to the way so many of us were working - 40-hour weeks, long commutes."
How do we design policies and employee benefits that are suitable for hybrid work and WFH?
The Pandemic Policies Webinar
To answer all the above questions, we invited four top HR leaders from diverse industries for a webinar. We heard about their experiences and insights on how they are helping their employees face the pandemic. The webinar was held on July 8, 2021, with nearly 800 people registering for the event.
The Panel
Our HR experts for the event were:
- Ravi Mishra, Sr VP - HR, Advanced Materials Business, Grasim Industries Ltd.
- Nivedita Nanda, CHRO, Kaya India
- Rajita Singh, HR Head, Broadridge
- Mahima Kumar, Director, Culture & Talent, Sprinklr
The Takeaways
While there was a lot to learn, here are five top takeaways
- Employee well-being and welfare are high on the agenda.
- Companies have had to revamp their insurance and medical support policies to adapt to the pandemic situation.
- Policy design needs to consider many factors to be effective.
- Work From Home (WFH) has made irrelevant many popular employee benefits at the office.
- Companies are evolving newer types of employee benefits for the next normal.
- WFH has many significant challenges for employees and employers.
Don't miss out on reading the four-part series of lightly-edited transcripts of this helpful webinar. Or, watch it here.
