The Covid-19 pandemic has had an acute impact on the overall health of many people globally. The crisis altered our working environments in ways that left us with a feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity. A lot of people maybe struggling to balance their mental wellbeing and health, staying positive while also being productive. And, they need the best possible support and backing from their employers.

This is the true test of any company’s strength – sustainability and the spirit to step-up for its people. An interesting study by McKinsey shows how companies have supported their workforce during this crisis with a head and a heart in place.

As a people manager at my firm, I’m happy to see how most companies are focussed internally today to better support their teams and provide whatever they can in their capacity. I would like to highlight some initiatives worth a mention taken up by enterprises worldwide:

Wellness day-off:

Companies are concerned that working without time-offs is taking a toll on their workforce, therefore some of the companies have given their employees surprise “wellness day-offs”. Eg: Hindustan Unilever, Nestle India, L’Oreal India, Mondelez, GSK Consumer Healthcare and Godrej Group; as well as global technology majors like Google and Twitter are doing the same.

Covid care leaves:

Flipkart introduced ‘Covid Care Leaves’ whereby its employees can take up to 28 calendar days of paid leave in case they are diagnosed with Covid-19, regardless of whether they are hospitalised or not. “As per the ‘Time Away From Work Policy’, employees can take unlimited bereavement leaves.

JLL created an online portal of company resources to guide employees’ mental, physical and financial health, and foster their sense of belonging. It includes webinars that address coping with the current challenges and free access to the meditation app Headspace.

Health Insurance and Camps- Health Insurance facilities are available for TCS associates and their families; while emergency medical financial assistance is also available for them.

Companies like TCS, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Infosys are organizing Covid-19 testing camps in their offices to facilitate early detection to enable speedy treatment. They are also helping in getting the team vaccinated in the premises.

Time offs:

The food delivery giant Swiggy declared a 4 day week in these difficult times and reassured saying “we care”.

TIBCO has announced about a very long weekend of 5 days to the India team with work day leaves fully paid, for everyone to take a necessary break for physical and mental wellbeing amidst the second wave COVID chaos in India. Accenture – has meeting free hours on specific days of the week.

Workday, a California-based IT firm, announced it would provide the majority of its workers the equivalent of two-week pay to cover costs resulting from having to work from home. 

Wellness programs:

Few MNCs have provided its employees with an array of wellbeing resources. These included an on-site health coach, virtual wellbeing portal and employee counselling.

HP encouraged parents working remotely in Singapore to take an active role in their children’s learning, offering employees access to online resources that include weekly literacy activities curated by education leaders. 

It’s so amazing to see how companies are putting their people first and creating a caring culture.

At Ashnik, for the past year we are supporting our team members who were affected due to the pandemic by reaching out to them regularly and extending whatever help we could offer. With still surging cases everywhere in the world, we are paying utmost attention to people’s physical and mental health. Therefore, going a step ahead, we have recently announced additional support that to help the overall wellbeing of our teams.

• 1. Work-from -Anywhere:
  Ashnik was one of the early adopters of adopting ‘work from home’ approach last year even before it became a mandate by the governments. As the year progressed, we went on to declare a Work-from-Anywhere model making it flexible for talents who wanted to join, no matter their location or region. This not only provided people to choose flexible timings but also balance their work-life as per their convenience.
• 2. No pay-cut Policy:
  Any financial hits could be big de-motivators for people, so at Ashnik, the management team offered to take pay cuts so as to ensure no pay-cuts were levied for the rest of the teams. We maintained full salary payments, incentives or other monitory benefits, ensuring their economic safety is in place for them and their families.
• 3. No-layoff Pledge:
  Because our team is our biggest strength, we decided to keep their jobs safe and secure. No lay-offs were done during the crucial peaks of the pandemic or later.
• 4. Resources and Well-being programs:
  Shifting form in-office to remote work is always challenging. Hence, at Ashnik, we invested in collaboration tools to keep ourselves updated about each-others’ wellbeing. Few programs like “Family Friday” and “The café” were initiated on the dedicated channels to promote the being-in-office feeling with regular team collaborations and meetups beyond work.
• 5. Additional benefits during Covid:
  The additional leaves and time-offs are added for the year in leave policy, Covid Care leaves added to the usual annual medical leaves, Half day time-offs for allowed for recreational activities, post-vaccination paid leaves etc. have been provided to support our teams better.

At times like these, thoughtful and empathetic efforts by companies helps to boost morale and offers the much needed emotional, physical and mental wellbeing support to its people. After all, any company’s strongest pillars are its people.