'The hybrid working model has proved that we have all become hyper-productive'

Covid-19 and its aftermath have been trying on all of us, especially on the PR and Corporate Communications industry. The lockdown that ensued turned our worlds topsy-turvy in a matter of days. Amid the challenges posed by the pandemic, people had to adapt to new ways of operating due to which hybrid models became the new normal and digital media became the new medium for interactions. But we are slowly transitioning back to the way things were pre-lockdown. 

To talk about the initial challenges the communications industry had to face as a whole in the beginning of the lockdown and ways it has affected their productivity and how they can best transition to traditional ways of communication was a brilliant panel of achievers of the PR and Communications industry who spoke at the third edition of e4m’s PR and Corp Comm 40 under 40 Summit 2021.

On the panel were Shubhreet Kaur, Director, Creative Services, Hill + Knowlton Strategies India; Proteek Dey, Head of Digital, RF Thunder; and Supraja Srinivasan, Head - PR & Corporate Communications, BookMyShow. The session was moderated by Shrabasti Mallik from Exchange4media.

The session began with the panellists sharing how they eased into the work-from-home model and the hiccups they had to overcome. “One of the things that I miss the most was being able to go to the office and meet people. One thing that covid clearly showed is that managing a house and your kids and then work from home is quite a challenge and it continues to be so,” said Kaur and added, “The kind of connect that you get and how things move much faster when you attend an office or are able to do a client meeting or build that bonding you need as a team an even when you are working with clients and the relationship that you build that took a hit during covid. Frankly speaking, I think people did a really good job to be able to manage and keep things up given that no one was able to meet anyone; you were only talking through zoom. People managed to cope and managed to make things work and I think that is commendable.”

The experience was slightly different for Srinivasan. She explained, “We were essentially everything out-of-home entertainment. The idea was you step out of home for any form of anything, whether it was movies, live events, music shows, sport, theatre, activities and even amusement parks – your go-to was Bookmyshow. For us, to tell customers to stay home and that we would bring entertainment to them was like a complete 360-degree shift. On March 25, 2020, the day after the national lockdown, we went live with the first virtual music series. We were the first platform to do that transition in less than 24 hours because we kind of had an inkling of what was coming. So we had begun working accordingly two weeks in advance. We were perceptive enough to activate it in less than 24 hours. We started off as a 10-day series and had some really popular indie artistes on board to do this series. Having said that, it is important to address the elephant in the room, which is the fact that the media industry shrank overnight and so many journalists were out of jobs. There was a time when I used to think multiple times before sending out a message because I did not know if that person had the job. I think the biggest challenge was not to reach out to people in a virtual medium but finding the right journalist to tell that story.”

To this, Dey added, “I don’t just speak for ourselves or Ruder Finn; I speak for the world. We had no idea how to go about managing this. And the situation was evolving in real-time – every day there would be a new rumour or law or something new that you had to understand and then figure out ways around it. And at that point of time, we were also going through a phase where we had hired a lot of people; how do we onboard a workforce while physically not being present. And that was exactly the time that Zoom helped out. That was the only way we saw it possible for us to connect with everyone. And once we did, we realised that everyone around us was on the same boat.”

All three panellists, although we are eager to get back to work like they knew pre-pandemic, agreed in unison on the fact that the hybrid mode of working is here to stay. “If the lockdown and hybrid working model has proved anything, it would be that we have all become hyper-productive,” pointed out Dey.

The world, however, is moving towards normalcy. What are the prerequisites that a communication professional should keep in mind while transitioning back to the traditional ways of interacting? Dey elucidated the facts in beautiful words. “The first thing to be kept in mind and this is not just for communications professionals but across board, is compassion and empathy. A lot of people have been through a lot in the last many months. While a lot of people are coming back to work, I have come across many people who are managing a lot of things at home and they have figured out a way to put a balance. I don’t feel that it is right for us to disbalance that.”