Corporations break ground for compassionate communication

Organizations have lately come to realise that the most valuable asset is their human resource. Compassionate employee engagement ensures retention of talent, fostering of loyalty and improvement of organizational performance as a whole. It has also emerged as a critical driver of an organization’s success in the fast-paced environment.

Today, they are working with employees who have been impacted by the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, extending benefits and facilities to aid them in these trying times.

In the third story of the series, we look at the steps taken by corporations to imbibe an optimistic work environment and enhance employee culture.

Sharing workload

With employees overwhelmed by the pandemic, team ethics come into play. Sharing workloads of employees along with mandatory communication from leadership play a key role.

TVS Motor Company has been proactive in this regard. On a team level, managers and peers stepped up to share the workload. With empathy as a strong driver, teams have been creating a solid support system for affected colleagues.

Team members have also been volunteering to take end-to-end ownership of projects or do the heavy lifting while their peers recover. This system extends beyond the workspace and involves regularly monitoring the colleague's health, supporting them with necessary resources and keeping them in good spirits.

As an organisation, PhonePe made sure to communicate to all teams about the importance of health. Especially talking about the comms team, it reprioritized projects that were critical and urgent to be taken action on. The same was also communicated to all the external PR agencies and partners.

For Panasonic, Communication has played a significant role here in engaging and keeping people informed about all important updates in terms of policies, activities, help available, Govt announcements among other things.

Additionally, through their daily newsletters, the organization has been recognizing the contribution of people who have come forward to help colleagues in this difficult time and also provided a platform for those affected by Covid to share their experiences and recovery stories spreading positivity.

“Communications whether internal or external has played a pivotal role in navigating through such uncertain times. It ensured transparency within the organization, the authenticity of the information, and a sense of belongingness among employees. Communicating with empathy and compassion is the need of the hour and same needs to reflect in our internal and external communications approach, asserted the firm”, asserted Pooja Garg Khan, Head Corporate Communications, Panasonic India

Checking on people

With crippling personal losses, financial worries and general gloom, communication professionals struggle to find the work-life balance in work-from-home.  In times such as these, generic well-being guidelines and expert seminars are not enough.

The first step is to create an encouraging and accepting environment for employees to seek help. The second is investing in dedicated channels that provide employees access to experts, including life coaches, psychologists, and experienced individuals.

However, the success of these initiatives depends on sensitizing employees at the managerial level to be empathetic and understanding of their colleagues.

“Communication leaders must lead by example in prioritising the overall wellness of their teams. On the physical front, the pandemic and the 24/7 nature of communication jobs can burn out among many in the fraternity. Organizations need to share well-researched and timely information with the workforce, which seeks to inform and not alarm. Other initiatives which can focus on physical well-being range from regular sessions with the Chief Medical Officer, engaging communication on taking care of their fitness, ensuring a wholesome diet, stress management, among others”, noted Varghese M Thomas, VP & Global Head – Corporate Communication, TVS Motor Company

Technology playing a significant role in being digitally connected

The swift transition to remote working and virtual technology was a significant disruption during the pandemic, and technology played a crucial role as an enabler of all workplace transformation. 

“Technology has made it easy for us to hire and onboard people across locations”, said Priya Patankar, Head of Communications, PhonePe. “Most work tools are now accessible remotely which has made it easy for the team to work from anywhere. Be it setting up a media meeting or pitching a story or even doing a leadership interaction, Google Meet and Zoom have made life really easy.

We also use Zoom for regular non-work team huddles like celebrating both personal and professional milestones and checking-in on team members to make sure they are doing well”, added Patankar.

Panasonic configured its operations to a digitally compatible model where technology takes precedence and accelerated the adoption of digital platforms for all its communications and operations in the first wave of Covid itself. When wave 2 of the pandemic took us all by surprise, we were able to quickly find our feet and management set up a task force to respond to employee needs. The task force members have played a very important role in establishing daily connect with all employees, maintaining and tracking recovery and ensuring real-time support.

The investments at TVS Motor Company in building robust digital infrastructure have helped them find a more balanced hybrid approach, leading to significant productivity gains. 

While that is on the business front, technology has also been instrumental in forging an enhanced sense of belongingness and unity among team members. It launched ‘Spotlight’ – a platform that crowdsources content from employees over fun and engaging themes and enables teams and individuals to gratify each other on achievements ranging from skills to operational successes.  In the second wave, the company leveraged technology to launch an exclusive employee connect dashboard TVS-ICE (In Case of Emergency) App.

ICE is an emergency response mechanism for employees and their families in need of health, hospitalisation, home care, general medical support, insurance, pregnancy, and cash/financial support. The company has also introduced an employee assistance programme to address issues related to anxiety, mental health and well-being, amongst others. 

A sustainable work culture 

Most communication professionals are expected to be available and functioning 24x7. The current pandemic has definitely been challenging. Sustainable work culture will only be achieved if we imbibe some key learnings like the greatest asset of a company is its people, a synergic team is the first step to address and emerge stronger from uncertainty and crisis securely and adapting to changes and being receptive and self-motivated is key to learning new technologies and skills in the fast-evolving world of communication.