Video conferencing and collaboration is the new way of connecting

NEC is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies and brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to provide solutions for empowering people, businesses and society. Headquartered in Japan, NEC started operations in India in the 1950s, accelerating its growth through the expansion of business to global markets.

Here, Ms. Kashish Daya Kapoor, Associate VP, and Head of HR, NEC Technologies India Pvt Ltd, tells us how NEC is dealing with the Covid-19 situation and the future of work. Excerpts from an interview:

DQ: How are you dealing with the Covid-19 situation? What plans have you put in place?

Ms. Kashish Daya Kapoor: NECTI, from the day one, in response to the rapid expansion of the coronavirus across India, has formed the core BCP (Business Continuity Planning) team, and created a comprehensive response plan to combat any potential threat. During lockdown, NECTI is staying at the top of the developments taking place in the pandemic situation nationally, and communicating employees through leadership about the important measures and advisories and reassuring employees that safety is our priority.

The measures and advisories are applicable on all NECTI Locations:

* Noida

* Jasola

* Bengaluru

* Mumbai

* Chennai.

NECTI has BCP in place, which includes system of prevention and recovery from potential threats of COVID-19 to NECTI employees. The Crisis Leadership team, Crisis Management team and Crisis Response team were formed to take decisions, plan and act on them promptly. The plan ensures that business-related matters/projects, clients, employees on deputation, and local employees/visitors are protected, and are able to function quickly in the event of any emergency before lockdown, during the lockdown and after lockdown.

We have strengthened our digital infrastructure in terms of introducing various virtual meeting tools and provided end-to-end support, in order to extend support to employees during work from home, and launched the work from home policy for providing flexibility to employees in post lockdown scenario. As working from home is the new normal, NECTI plans to launch new, normal policy and guidelines to set the context for the employees about the importance of precautionary measures to be taken in post pandemic world.

Since the initial outbreak, we are regularly communicating with employees through leadership messages, HR, admin and IT Guidelines and govt advisories to ensure employees to stay aware

DQ: Are you giving employees more control over their schedules?

Ms. Kashish Daya Kapoor: In these times of social imbalance, we strive to give flexibility to our employees,and encourage them to work in a collaborative environment as one team with full ownership. The team managers are being sensitised to constantly communicate with their team members and keep track of their well-being.

One major step towards giving the employees more ease and command over their schedules is launch of work from home policy where the leadership emphasized on continuation of work from home in post lock down. We strongly encourage employees to take work from home as an option, going forward, in the new normal. We foresee this to bring more comfort, flexibility and peace of mind to our employees.

Apart from the policy, we constantly keep updating employees about how they should take hold of each day at home and have a healthy schedule and spend time with their families apart from work. Psychological well-being of employees is also crucial for us, and we always re-iterate to strike a work-life balance in these stress full times.

Needless to say, the employees are the asset for an organization, and in these unparalleled times NECTI is trying to support employees in every possible way.

DQ: This is a challenging time for managers. What advice would you give them?

Ms. Kashish Daya Kapoor: During a global pandemic, it’s hard to cultivate an optimistic mind-set, but the real answer to deal with this situation is how managers are explaining the current challenge to themselves. It’s not the problem, which is here to stay for a couple of days, rather, the snowball effect of this going to loom, for quite a considerable time.

In my view, managers should understand that they are going through same frustration as each one of their team members is going through, and to deal with this is to be compassionate in approach. Orienting oneself towards being a little gentle in handling issues within teams, being patient with respect to own growth trajectory, and having a lens of kindness and goodwill that can be applied to everything they do can be the saviour in these times.

DQ: What are the policy responses you would give to the MSMEs and SMEs?

Ms. Kashish Daya Kapoor: Given the clampdown on economic activity because of the global crisis, it’s evident that lot of MSMEs and SMEs will get impacted directly and be choked. To ensure that India’s MSMEs and SMEs sector is less exposed to the economic blow rendered by the virus, the Government of India should draw up a policy framework with multiple scenarios prepared for how to continue business operations in this crisis.

Mitigating the impact on the labour workforce, taking specific measures for self-employed or owned-managed enterprises, deferring utility and social security payments like electricity and water bill are some important measures that can be the part of a robust policy to keep MSMEs and SMEs floating.

DQ: How does work/life balance work in a crisis like this?

Ms. Kashish Daya Kapoor: Work from home usually blurs the line between work and free time. In this crisis, work-life balance is important to maintain for mental well-being. In order to strike a balance between both, one should look at working in designated work hours and finding time for oneself and for family.

Before the work starts, having a morning schedule is highly recommendable, whether spending time with family or exercising  both could realign mind and increases the power of concentration, in mid of the work going on small coffee break and post work, connecting with friends and  distant family members virtually, taking out time for pursuing some personal hobbies can be helpful in demarcating the line between work and home.

Better stakeholder management, closing on high priority tasks can also be helpful in achieving the balance at work and leaving some good room for spending quality and productive time at home.

DQ: How are you now facilitating digital work?

Ms. Kashish Daya Kapoor: In the pre-pandemic world, digital transformation has already disrupted the technology sector vastly. During the crisis digital transformation has gone to another level, where in true sense (disruption = innovation) can been seen live through many instances:

At NECTI, our all of the workforce is working remotely and post the launch work from home policy, we are well prepared to support the employees in digital infrastructure in terms of providing laptops, enabling them with adequate IT facilities to work in a conducive environment at home. Connecting through virtual meeting tools like Skype for business, Zoom and Microsoft Teams has helped us collaborating with much ease to stay in touch with team members and colleagues in virtual space.

We have made changes in our HRMIS system. It has been updated to give ease to the employees in marking work from home. Also, we are doing business and learning webinars virtually to continue our skilling journey in the virtual world. We have introduced enhanced internal communication platforms for the employee engagements for staying connected like, webinars and e-polls.

DQ: How are the latest technologies going to redefine workplace?

Ms. Kashish Daya Kapoor: As the new normal of working from home is going to settle in and the world is not going to be the same for all of us. Definitely our workplaces will be going to get redefined. With the onset of new meeting tools like Zoom 5.0 and Microsoft Teams, video conferencing virtual collaboration is the new way of connecting officially with colleagues.

Companies are going to invest in new technologies that make work from home much more functional and productive.  This would include video conferencing subscriptions and new equipment.  At the same time, there is likely to be more investment in security, so that data and information is not compromised.

Kashish Daya Kapoor, Associate VP, and Head of HR, NEC Technologies India Pvt Ltd

DQ: How do you plan for a future of ‘decent digiwork’?

Ms. Kashish Daya Kapoor: We have already switched to online webinars on health, soft skills, technology workshops, etc. Also, we have launched the work from home policy, which can accommodate the best interest of our remote workers.

For NECTI, safety and security of employees is at priority. Keeping in view the change and safety as the focus of our future, we are in process of launching a new normal handbook, which sets the guidelines of resuming our life in post pandemic world.